Review of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010) by Daniel C — 13 Apr 2011

'Gainsbourg' is both a natural history of the man portrayed and the idea of the man. The brilliant use of creature effects in the make-up of Doug Jones - 'Pan' from 'Pan's Labyrinth' is a multi-layered touch, not enforcing an opinion of Serge upon the audience as such a trick might, but illustrating several things Gainsbourg triumphed over. All of these were his "self". He embraced and made his own the negative and positive appraisals people made of him, could deflect his enemies as well as magnetise friends and lovers. There were many lovers.

Bardot is present and accounted for and her portrayal here does little to shift the notion that she was a muse for artists who lusted after her rather than be a truly great artist herself. A panoply of women passed through Gainsbourg's bed linen, but it is his soul mate, Jane Birkin, who provides the beating heart of the film.

Portrayed almost chillingly by the late British actress Lucy Gordon, Birkin is first portrayed as the eternal little girl found and nurtured into womanhood by Gainsbourg - with all the ponderous ambiguity that entails - only to become the "adult" in the relationship, she realizing that Gainsbourg's talent, gift and curse was that he was an eternal little boy.

His years basking in his legendary status in the 1980s, for which he was repudiated and gained another reputation outside France as a "dirty old man" (ask Whitney Houston... no, he apologised for that on the same chat show though that apology is rarely seen) retain the wistful whimsy of the former half of the film, but do seem a touch like an afterthought.

Overall you are left with the sense that this was a man who lived, who was a misogynist who prized women, an artist whose upbringing was comfortable yet whose spirit could play the scale of emotions on heart strings; whose very charisma could melt his enemies' ire.

If 'Initial BB' doesn't become the new French national anthem by the end of the year I will be disappointed.