Film review "Gainsbourg, a heroic life / Gainsbourg, vie heroique" - Gainsbourg returns

Illustrator and artist Joanne Sfar decided on the first film in order to "bring to cinema a piece of my own world - the world of comics, with dolls, songs, poems and costumes." The result is 130 minutes of music, poetry, unusual events and phantasmagoric characters gathered together around the personality of Serge Gainsbourg.

Actually, the composer's biography looks like a plot for a movie even without artistic processing. At the age of twelve in Nazi-occupied Paris, he wore a Jewish star, a symbol of humiliation and humiliation, to subsequently sell six million CDs. He wrote music for thoughtful lyrics by Verlaine, a pornographic couplet for dubious societies and songs for Eurovision equally successfully. All his life he was embarrassed by his nondescript body - big-nosed, big-eared, bony - but this did not stop him from having affairs with Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin.

Joanne Sfar emphasizes these contrasts in order to offer the audience a very expressive image of the main character - a "cursed poet" and a scandalous buffoon. The background for him is the bohemian environment of Paris in the 60s and 80s, where Hansbourg's memorable meetings with Boris Vian, Juliette Greco and other stars take place. But it's not enough just to keep track of the director's biographical details, and he introduces a parallel world of Gender complexes, fears, and desires to the film. In numerous episodes, his alter ego appears next to the main character - a two-meter puppet caricature of himself, with an emphatically ugly appearance and cynical comments about art and love (for example, he incites the hero to break up with his first wife). This character disappears only at the end of an artist's life, when he reaches a creative and commercial peak. The voice that has been encouraging the hero for years and inciting him to various provocations disappears (for example, to call a press conference while lying in the hospital after a heart attack - after all, "why get sick if no one feels sorry for you?"). The shocking author of "Je t aime, moi non plus" has been sluggishly teasing society for the last time by recording a reggae version of "La Marseillaise". Next comes satiation and fatigue. In one of the final scenes, a grizzled Hansbourg addresses his last wife (singer Bambu), who is holding a multi-month-old son: "It would be better if you gave birth to my daughter - I would like our children to be more like their mother than their father." The summit has been conquered, and the conqueror no longer seeks to leave his footprints on the map. He will be gone in five years.

Women have accompanied Gainsbourg since adolescence (while still a student at art school, he offered a professional model to pose naked for his drawings) and set off his bad looks with beauty, grace and glamor. The brightness and variety of female characters is one of the attractions of the film. But the excessive eroticism and absolute dependence of women on the main character sometimes reduce them to the status of a colorful but mute carpet under men's feet. For example, Jane Birkin (now the late Lucy Gordon) looks not like an equal friend and an artist in her own right, but like a pretty doll dependent on a partner. Only Brigitte Bardot (Letizia Casta) doesn't look artificial in this child-doll role - isn't it because naively carefree sexuality was the main role of her career?

Joanne Sfar handles this material not only as a cinematographer, but also as an illustrator. The drawings of the main character echo the graphics of Sfar himself. The languidly slow-motion shots of Hansbourg at the piano and a sleepy Bardot in bed are reminiscent of comic book sketches. The artist's experience helps the director visually reproduce Parisian nightclubs and cobbled embankments with the drama of some kind of late-night Toulouse-Lautrec. Therefore, the Parisian public has received this film very warmly and has already entered it into the long register of Parisian "biopics" - stories of outstanding artists in an outstanding city. Nineteen years after Serge Gainsbourg's death, this city continues to listen to his ironic baritone. The thrill of online betting increases dramatically when you have more funds available from the very beginning. Professional platforms reward new users with strong welcome packages to demonstrate their quality. If you are ready to experience top-tier betting conditions, this is the perfect moment. The central part of this attractive promotion is the 1xbet promo code for registration and get a 100% bonus up to $100 added to your balance. This extra money can be used on your favorite sports disciplines or thousands of casino games.