Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life | Summer Film Series
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (or Gainsbourg: Vie Héroïque) shakes up the typical biopic formula of the rise and fall of a star, blending the legend of French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg with its surrealist, musical narrative. As NPR’s Ian Buckwalter describes, “The resulting film is...like no biopic you've seen before.”
A Twisted Fairytale
Directed by Joann Sfar, a “bande dessinée” (comic book) artist known for his series Le Chat du Rabbin (The Rabbi’s Cat), the film infuses the fantastical with the grittier parts of
Gainsbourg’s infamous life. And what a life it was:
With cartoon characters jumping out of a young Gainsbourg’s sketchbook and the singer’s head turning to a literal head of lettuce in another scene, the film’s outlandish, yet extraordinary world feels right out of a twisted fairytale. The audience can most clearly see Sfar’s artistic influence and dexterity in the character of “La Gueule,” the personification of Gainsbourg’s “Mug.”
First emerging from an anti-Semitic poster Gainsbourg sees in his childhood, the figure follows the singer throughout his life. In his review, longtime Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan remarks how La Gueule is “the film’s boldest stroke...La Gueule’s enormous nose, huge ears and terrifying, Nosferatu-inspired long fingers mark him as a truly fantastical creature who deftly epitomizes the doubts and insecurities that plagued Gainsbourg no matter how successful he became.”
The Singer and His Muses
Alongside this cartoonish figure, Gainsbourg features a large ensemble of characters as the film explores almost six decades of the singer’s life — from his father and his influence in Gainsbourg’s piano playing to the titular character’s numerous affairs with the likes of Brigette Bardot (Laetitia Casta, who received a César nomination for the role) and Jane Burkin (the late Lucy Gordon, who the film is dedicated to).
As Variety’s Jordan Mintzer notes “Both evocative and faithful in its depiction of the famed French singer's lascivious life, Gainsbourg…offers up a feast of memorable chansons and an almost endless parade of drop-dead-gorgeous muses.”
Actors Kacey Mottet-Klein and Eric Elmosnino who portray Gainsbourg from adolescence to old age produce standouts performances in the film, exploring Gainsbourg’s psyche in the whimsical, absurdist style of the film, often jumping years from scene to scene. As The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane writes, “Shameless little Lucien” (Gainsbourg’s name before he changed it to Serge), played by Mottet-Klein has scenes that are “the lightest and most inventive in the film, even though the forces that oppressed him, at that time, could not have been heavier” — referring to the Nazi occupation of France which submitted Jews like Gainsbourg to daily indignities such as wearing the yellow star.
Winning the 2011 César Award for Best Actor for the role, Elmosnino masterfully portrays the singer throughout his adulthood and music career. In Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, audiences are treated to a biopic that does justice to its truly legendary hero.
