Je t'aime moi non plus (1976) Films Soleil - Noir Gainsbourg Style

 

or "Films Noirs à la manière de Serge Gainsbourg" 

It's a bizarre riff on The Postman Always Rings Twice. 

Directed and Written by by Serge Gainsbourg. So how Noir was this guy? I as a teenager was first "turned on" to Gainsbourg's Je t'aime moi non plus by my at the time high school girlfriend. She told me that they were "making love' as they sang (urban legend, lol.) The song was, I guess, scandalous to the older generations, lol. For us it was the here and now. 

"Je t'aime… moi non plus" is a 1967 song written by Serge Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot. 

When in 1969, Gainsbourg re recorded the best known version with Jane Birkin. Jane asks him if he recorded live sex when he made the Bardot version Gainsbourg tells her "Thank goodness it wasn't, (live sex) otherwise I hope it would have been a long-playing record." lol.

"Je t'aime… moi non plus" was actually initially banned from radio in Spain, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, and Italy. France, the only sensible country, just banned it from being played before 11PM. The Vatican and L'Osservatore Romano denounced the recording. 

Birkin said in and interview with Celia Walden for The Daily Telegraph thet Gainsbourg called the Pope "our greatest PR man".[Walden, Celia (13 October 2009). "Jane Birkin interview". The Daily Telegraph. London. 3 August 2010.]

When the ban was lifted it became first foreign-language number one hit in the UK.

So again, how Noir was this guy?   Lets go down part of the list.

• French poet, singer-songwriter, actor and director, becoming a musical legend due to his varied style and individuality.
• His home on rue de Verneuil in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district in Paris is still covered in graffiti and poems.
• Due to his explicit eroticism, his song "Je t'aime...moi non plus", sung by his then lover Jane Birkin, became his biggest international hit in 1969. Ironically, he recorded the original version with lover Brigitte Bardot, who later pleaded him not to release it, one year before.
• He was said to smoke five packs of unfiltered Gitane cigarettes a day.
• Had a heart attack in May 1973. At a press conference from his hospital bed he announced he would reduce his chances of another heart attack by "increasing his intake of alcohol and cigarettes". He continued to smoke during his stay at the hospital, hiding cigarette ends in pill bottles.
• Became infamous for his provocative and controversial appearances on French television in the 1980s, often showing up unshaved and drunk. (IMDb)

Envelope pushing is what Gainsbourg did. 

Cinematography was by Willy Durant (The Night of the Following Day, China Moon) Music by Serge Gainsbourg.

The film stars Jane Birkin (Blowup, Death On The Nile) as Johnny, Joe Dallesandro (Andy Warhol's Flesh, Trash, Lonesome Cowboys, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood For Dracula, and also The Cotton Club, The Limey) as Krassky, Hugues Quester ( La nuit de Varennes) as Padovan. 

Jane Birkin as Johnny

Joe Dallesandro as Krassky

Hugues Quester as Padovan

With  Reinhard Kolldehoff (The Damned, The Winds of War) as Boris, and Gérard Depardieu (Green Card, Cyrano de Bergerac) in a small part as Le paysan au cheval (the peasant with the horse). 

The Story

Two "real good" buddies, one Krassky, is Bi the other Padovan is Gay. They have a canary yellow Mack B-61 dump truck that they use for a traveling carting business. They are working what looks like an arid scrubland landscape in some imaginary Noirsville American Southwest  (but actually maybe  the Alpes-Maritimes and The Camargue in the Bouches-du-Rhône region of France). 

When we first see them they are hauling garbage up a dirt access road to a land fill. We get some nice shots of the Mack grill, hood, outside and out through the cab window. 

The Veedol Motor Oil Gal

It's got a dead crow caught in a windshield wiper. Is Serge giving us some mystical symbolism? 

Is it some set designers added touch of dark garnish? Maybe there's a commentary on the DVD or Blu. It seems much. Who is not going to stop and clean the window?  Looks like the crow flew right into it too boot. So when you see the the shot of how slow the truck is going it had to be a very clumsy bird to fly right into it.

Krassky is driving Padovan sleeps on his back with his head against Krassky's thigh. Real good buddies. They dump the load.

We cut to a gang of would be townie wise guys weaving all over the road in a 1956 Buick Special. 

Back on the main road again in the Mack, Krassky and Padovan spot the now broken down Buick on the shoulder of the road. the stranded guys wave Krassky down. One of them gets into the cab the others climb into the dump box. 

the 56 Buick Special taillight

As soon as they get back up to speed the guy in the cab figures out that Krassky and Padovan are gay and makes some disparaging remark. Insulted, Padovan reaches over and flips the door handle while at the same pushing the guy out of the cab. Krassky hits the dump lever and the box does up sliding all but on of the townies out onto the road. The last man standing, so to speak, hung onto the cab guard on the front of the box. 

The lone townie rides the empty box to  Boris' "Snack" its an old airport landing strip converted into lonely highway pitstop lunch counter with a large hanger / garage. (If you've seen it it will remind you a bit of the last chance gas station lunch counter in Chair de Poule). 

After finding the one townie still with them they tell him to get lost they turn their backs to him and they walk into the place. Padovan spots a pinball machine right by the door and starts playing. Kassky walks up to the counter.

 He spots Johnny. Johnny has her back to Krassky. From behind she looks like a young man. 

We got to assume that Krassky feels a stirring in his loins, lol. When Johnny turns around she reveals that she is a woman, albeit, a woman with a very short stack. 

We got to assume that Krassky feels a stirring in his loins, lol. When Johnny turns around she reveals that she is a woman, albeit, a woman with a very short stack. Krassky is still interested. Up to this point the audience assumed that Krassky was just gay. Krassky starts making small talk with Johnny.

So Padovan notices all this and of course stars getting jealous. We meet Boris the owner. Boris is a basically a course slob. He wears a fishnet T-shirt and white pants held up by suspenders. He all day marinates himself guzzling Champaign straight from the bottle. It makes him fart. 

Reinhard Kolldehoff as Boris

Boris likes to keep Johnny in line by yelling at her. He tells her after Krassky leaves that Karssky and Padovan are gay. She doesn't really believe him.

As the days go by Krassky and Johnny get friendlier,  

Krassky gives her a ride in the Mack to a farmers market. The Krassky brings her a stuffed animal from a good will clothing haul and of course Padovan gets even more jealous.

On the weekends Boris brings a band into the unused garage and holds an amateur strip tease contest and dance for the locals. 

Boris' amateur striptease and dance

Johnny and Krassky dance. They start going on dates. Krassky takes her to dinner and to a roller derby game. We get some unsubtle subtext Gainsbourg style too boot.

A date at the roller derby track

Of course all this leads to the big moment when Johnny and Krassky are going to try to play hide the sausage a cheap hotel  combo bathroom / bed room. 

The "Je t'aime moi non plus" Moment - Noir Style

WTF Krassky nothin' happing here?

What gives - Boris was right

It starts to go slightly Noirsville after Krassy and Johnny are on her bed Krassky can't get it up. Johnny frustrated tells him that Boris was right and calls Krassky a fag. Krassy gets pissed and kicks her out of bed. She sprawls on the floor, and huddles in the corner by the sink. 

Later as she lays in an almost fetal position on the floor with her back to Krassky, he starts getting aroused looking at her ass. 

Yes Virginia, Serge Gainsbourg goes there.

So Johnny and Krassky start making love however, anal for Johnny, is a pleasure / pain experience and she screams during the sessions. It sounds like he's killing her. How Noir is that?  (one past girlfriend of mine kept a jar of Vaseline in a draw in the night table, another resorted to olive oil (organic but was that healthy?) 

We get a humorous montage of their adventures in getting thrown out of various hot sheet hotels / motels

WTF is going on in there?

It goes fully Noirsville after Padovan gets beat up by the townies and then attacks Johnny. 

Noirsville

Gainsbourg took a twisted shot at James M. Cain's already twisted The Postman Always Rings Twice and comes up with his own spin with a Film Noir that will not be for all tastes. 

"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness." (Pablo Picasso)

This film is what in the original coinage by the French Right Wing and Religious publications in Paris in the mid 1930s would condemn as a Film Noir.

The cinematography is excellent, we get unexpected closeups and Dutch angled worshipful like shots of the Mack B-61, the hydraulics, the engine, the wheels, etc. (Willy Durant must be a gearhead, lol). There's, montages of Johnny and Krassky's skinny dip  in a gravel pit mud puddle, their love making sessions, the dances. The visuals are great.  The main title music sounds like it's an homage to a film from the late 1960s it sounds like a Chaplin Silent film score, hell maybe that's what Serge was going for. Fans of the song  Je t'aime… moi non plus get two instrumental versions during the film. 

Definitely worth a watch. 7/10.