When Serge Gainsbourg directed his first film… “Je t’aime moi non plus”, initially released in 1976, can be (re)discovered this week in theaters. Performed by Jane Birkin and Joe Dallesandro, this work is prohibited for children under 16.
From song to film
Everyone knows the song I love you neither. One of the most famous in Serge Gainsbourg’s repertoire, first performed with Brigitte Bardot in 1967, then in 1969 with Jane Birkin in a more eroticized version. A title so mythical that the formula has entered everyday language and has become an expression used many times to define contradictory and ambiguous relationships between two beings.
But do you know Je t’aime moi non plus, the film? This is the first feature film written and directed by Serge Gainsbourg, released almost 50 years ago, in 1976 precisely. Banned for children under 16, the film attracted more than 500,000 curious spectators* at the time.
This is the very first release of the film, distributed by Splendorwhich makes it a real rarity not to be missed if the film is playing in a theater near you!
What is it about ?
Two boys, Padovan and Krass, are traveling down a deserted road in their truck when they come across an isolated snack bar, where Johnny, a young English girl with a tomboyish appearance, works as a waitress. The young woman’s boring and sad daily life is shattered when Krass sets eyes on her for the first time…
A sulphurous reputation, a scent of the forbidden
Why should you see or rewatch this film? It’s an understatement to say that Je t’aime moi non plus has a sulphurous reputation. A feature film whose poetry and audacity can be praised, but for which we can also express a form of rejection, particularly for its form. Je t’aime moi non plus is a rather harsh and rough film, which could be described as an intimate western. With its arid settings, its sticky atmosphere, and its evocations of the western genre.
Prohibited for children under 16, the film is rather crude and some scenes should be reserved for an informed audience. It contains a number of sex scenes, which may be disturbing. The film would also have narrowly escaped the X rating in France. “If films are sexual, it’s because it’s in life“, explained Jane Birkin at the time of filming, in this INA archive, which allows you to get a good idea of the atmosphere of the film and the filming in Uzès.
“The characters are touching. Viewers won’t be shocked, but they will be disturbed. Everyone is a little bit bisexual“, says Jane Birkin, referring to the love triangle that forms in the film. To embody these characters, Gainsbourg surrounded himself with Jane Birkin, his companion at the time, but also the Warholian muse Joe Dallesandro and Hugues Quester.
Serge Gainsbourg was a jack-of-all-trades artist, and it was with this approach that he took on the script and direction of Je t’aime moi non plus. “It’s the result of many things that I’ve touched on like painting, architecture, film music, etc.“, he still says in this INA archive. Some see parallels between moving painting and his cinema. Sensations predominate, perhaps leaving spectators hungry for a more narrative story. Be warned , this film destabilizes, disorients, but that is the intention of its director.
Film buffs will have fun discovering a few little anecdotes: the voice of Francis Huster to dub Joe Dalessandro, and appearances by the very young Michel Blanc and Gérard Depardieu.
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It should be noted that Serge Gainsbourg would then direct three other feature films: Equateur in 1983, Charlotte for ever in 1986 and Stan the Flasher in 1990.
Also in today’s news, there is the official opening of the house and museum dedicated to Serge Gainsbourg, rue de Verneuil.
Je t’aime moi non plus is visible in cinemas since Wednesday September 20.
*Source CBO Box office