French pop star Serge Gainsbourg wrote and recorded several songs that might have made Barry White blush and, 20 years after his death, his sexy music and spicy, amour-filled life story still command interest.
"Gainsbourg," a French biopic that traces the Jewish musician-actor's story from his childhood in Nazi-occupied Paris to his fame as a lust-drunk singing sensation, receives its Southeast premiere on Thursday at Lefont Sandy Springs, the first of two Atlanta Jewish Film Festival screenings. Meanwhile, several reissues of je t’aime-drenched '60s and '70s albums by Gainsbourg and his former wife Jane Birkin have been released in by Seattle's Light in the Attic label.
Sotheby's Paris is even preparing to open an exhibit of photos of Gainsbourg, better known until this recent surge of interest as father of actress-singer Charlotte Gainsbourg.
"Serge and Jane are in the midst of a big resurgence, primarily due to the luxurious Light in the Attic reissues," notes Eric Levin, owner of Little 5 Points' Criminal Records, which is prominently displaying the discs alongside CDs by musicians who were barely out of diapers when the heavy-breathing Gainsbourg breathed his last in 1991. "LITA is known among record buying connoisseurs as the reissue label du jour, and if they put the time and care into re-releasing an album, there's got to be good cause.
"The fact that Serge created such an outstanding musical legacy, one that shifted and changed," Levin added, "only helps the cause."
The 2010 film hasn't captured the public imagination in the same way due to limited distribution to date. It garnered mostly positive reviews across Europe and the United Kingdom last year, and was a hit last April at New York's Tribeca Film Festival, where lead Eric Elmosnino won the best actor award. But no plans for a North American theatrical release have been announced -- not a complete surprise given how few French-language films make it across the Atlantic these days.
At 136 minutes, the film directed by French graphic novel artist Joann Sfar is challenging but rewarding viewing, a fascinating pastiche that frustrates by not building to fully coherent portrait.
True to French director Sfar's comics background, the film features animated opening credits and a recurring appearance by a life-size puppet version of always-smoking Gainsbourg, kind of a devil on the singer's shoulder who usually leads him deeper into trouble with the bottle and the many beautiful women whom he was only too happy to bed. Memorable among them is bombshell model-actress Laetitia Casta as bombshell Brigitte Bardot and Lucy Gordon (who committed suicide after the film was finished and to whom the film is dedicated) as the his lithe, much younger lover Birkin.
Even as Gainsbourg rises from obscure jazz club crooner to hit songwriter to chart-topping singer and French national treasure, his inner demons appear to be ever-gaining. "I frequent death," he tells Birkin at one point. "My crib was close to my coffin."
"Gainbourg" doesn't dig deep below the surface of its cheeky subject's inner turmoil, and brings up and then doesn't explore intriguing matters such as allegations of anti-Semitism, but it shines a light on an artist whose music clearly is holding up to the test of time.
Film preview
"Gainsbourg"
7:45 Thursday at Lefont Sandy Springs, 7:45 p.m. Feb. 24 at Regal Atlantic Station. $10; ages 65 and up, students, $9. Advance reservations suggesed: 404-806-9913. www.ajff.org.
