Jane By Charlotte

 

Director Charlotte Gainsbourg

Gainsbourg with her mother Jane Birkin

Gainsbourg on the set

Jane Birkin

JANE BY CHARLOTTE         C+                                                                                           France  (88 mi)  2022  d: Charlotte Gainsbourg

The idea is to see you as I never have before, or have dared to see you.  Filming you with a camera is basically an excuse just to look at you.                                                                          —Charlotte Gainsbourg to her mother

Something of a mother/daughter valentine between Jane Birkin and her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg as Birkin nears the end of her life, writing a definitive postscript, which is mostly a glorified home movie that pales in comparison to Chantal Akerman’s No Home Movie (2015), which documents her mother’s final days and is a more avant garde cinematic endeavor, but both are to be commended for airing in public such personalized expressions.  No backstory is provided, so for the most part you need to already be familiar with the family history, feeling like an insider portrait, which it is, but this may be alienating to many viewers who aren’t already aware of that storyline.  In some ways inspired by the unflinching documentary Grey Gardens (1976) by Albert and David Maysles, yet the focus is almost entirely in the present, as both women seem like they’ve lived privileged lives, where celebrity and fame have allowed them to live comfortably, with all their needs provided for, yet their conversations together never provide any real depth of emotion or intellectual curiosity, as Charlotte seems to know very little about her mother’s current life, retracing pieces of Birkin’s life, but for the most part it lacks substance and complexity, where you might think this diary-like personal tribute was a vanity project made for no one else but the two of them.  It certainly lacks the playful spirit of Varda’s JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. (1988), one of three films they made together, which cleverly captures Birkin’s anxieties about turning 40, a whimsical effort exploring her diverse personality that exudes fun and creativity, yet Charlotte hated the film, as a film crew was encamped in their home for the better part of a year when she was just 16, certainly putting a damper on her teenage social life.  With no mention whatsoever of Birkin’s acting career, or that she became a French fashion icon, it’s worth mentioning that she worked with Bertrand Tavernier, Alain Resnais, and even Hong Sang-soo, while also starring in Jacques Rivette’s final film, Around a Small Mountain (36 vues du Pic Saint Loup) (2009), having worked together in four films, including LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991), so she has worked with and been surrounded by other great artists.  Charlotte Gainsbourg is perhaps best known for working with Lars van Trier in films like ANTICHRIST (2009), winning the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, Melancholia (2011), and Parts 1 and 2 of Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (2014).  Both also have careers as popular singers, following in the footsteps of Gainsbourg’s father, French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, an iconic figure in French pop, with Birkin having a 12-year creative and romantic partnership with him, though he’s 19-years older, where at the time she was completely uninhibited about taking nude photos, becoming internationally famous in 1969 following their sung, spoken, and whispered duet song Serge Gainsbourg ft. Jane Birkin - Je t'aime...Moi non plus ... YouTube (4:25), which reached number one in the UK, the first foreign-language song to do so, originally written two years earlier for former lover Brigitte Bardot, but given a re-emphasized sexual allure with overtly erotic lyrics, including plenty of heavy breathing and orgiastic moans from Birkin that were deemed so offensive that the song was banned from the radio in Spain, Sweden, Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, and banned before 11 pm in France, while also thoroughly denounced by the Vatican.  According to Birkin, both found it all terribly amusing, with Gainsbourg calling the Pope “our greatest PR man.”  In France, both remain revered, larger than life public figures, where their fame is considerable. 

Birkin, born in London during the grim postwar period of rationing, initially emerged from the youth-driven Swinging London Mod Scene of the 60’s, making a brief appearance in a controversial nude scene as a blonde model in Antonioni’s BLOW-UP (1966), but found fame singing in French, relocating to France permanently by the end of the decade despite not speaking a word of French, eventually acquiring French citizenship.  Charlotte was also born in London, but raised in Paris, growing up on film sets, as both parents were involved in the film industry, winning a César award at the age of 14 for Most Promising Actress for her role in Claude Miller’s AN IMPUDENT GIRL (1985), making her musical debut in 1984 at the age of 13 with a scandalously creepy song that many believe glamorizes pedophilia and incest, Charlotte Gainsbourg & Serge Gainsbourg - Lemon Incest ... YouTube (5:10), a duet with her father, where he actually climbs into bed with her.  So this family is not without controversy.  Nonetheless, making the film offers Charlotte an opportunity to be closer to her mother, referencing a notebook with questions to ask her, but it’s clear Birkin is used to being the center of attention, a position she’s found herself in for nearly her entire lifetime, so her willingness to acquiesce to her daughter’s creative whims also allows her an opportunity not just to be a collaborator in her artistic venture, but to spend time with Charlotte for perhaps the very first time in her daughter’s adult life.  While it may seem like an instant love affair, catching up on the empty spaces and hidden corners of their lives, allowing them to just chat as mother and daughter, the film went on hold for two years after Charlotte asked a single question, with Birkin finding it too intrusive, as if she was being blamed for the family ills, but eventually she came around, as she misconstrued Charlotte’s intentions, where this is mostly a tender portrait of what it’s like having a famous parent, while also gathering insight into this latter stage of her life.  Using a combination of a 16mm Bolex camera for outdoor shots, occasionally employing a telephoto lens, while also snapping photos of her with a small Leica, there’s an intimacy and an unfamiliarity with each other, acknowledging there’s always been a shyness and a sense of reserve between them in a way that doesn’t exist with her other children.  Birkin freely admits, “You were very intimidating.  I felt privileged to be in your presence.”  Joining her mother in Japan for a performance of Gainsbourg’s songs, backed by an orchestra, seen hand-drawing self-portraits that she hands out as autographs, the film also takes them to a rooftop overlook of New York City, Charlotte’s childhood home on the Rue de Verneuil in Paris where they lived with Serge (Rue de Verneuil and the former house of Serge Gainsbourg), which has been left virtually untouched since his passing in 1991, which Birkin hasn’t set foot in for thirty years and is now a museum, where nothing has changed except the graffiti strewn on the front of the building, while also traveling the French countryside in search of a new puppy, yet the most luxuriant time is spent at Birkin's impressive coastal residence in Brittany’s northern Finistère.  The cutest thing in the film is Charlotte’s precocious 10-year old daughter Jo Attal, who brings a breath of fresh air, usually seen munching away on food, where just being a kid adds a refreshing element to what can at times feel like a morbid exploration just prior to death, as it anticipates her mother’s departure, reminiscent of Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell (2012), a memory piece that goes in search of her own mother who died of cancer when she was just eleven years old, crafting a valentine remembrance for a woman she knew all too briefly.

There are a flurry of quickly shot photographs, as Gainsbourg is improvising, adding a contemporaneous element, along with walks on the beach where there are attempts to be self-reflective, but much of the conversations border on the banal, never really offering something we haven’t seen before.  Perhaps the most haunting aspect is the use of home movies shown on the wall, with Birkin in darkened silhouette sitting in the foreground as images of the past are projected across her body, an example of memories that she carries literally playing out before her eyes.  It’s an interesting device of mixing mediums, with Charlotte asking her mother to comment on what she sees, but it becomes too personal and too painful, as the spirit of some who are no longer with us becomes too much to bear, so she’s forced to look away.  In some respects, there are unseen ghosts lingering, as the film is haunted by the presence not only of Serge Gainsbourg, but also Kate Barry, the eldest daughter that Birkin had with her first husband, composer John Barry, who suffered from an addiction to drugs and alcohol since she was a teenager and died in 2013 at the age of 46 under mysterious circumstances, as she fell from the window of a 4th floor apartment in Paris, where there is speculation it was a suicide.  This kind of selective memory from a dark domain affects all of us as we age, reinventing different versions in our head, where we tune out material that is simply too harrowing, reminiscent of soldiers who never talk about their wartime experiences with their children.  In a kind of eye-opening moment of clarity, Birkin acknowledges “Varda was right.  You must capture the present,” though Varda’s films were about so much more.  This idea of living in the present, however, letting go of the past, and not waiting for the future has a kind of Zen meditative aspect to it, as the emphasis on the present moment is perhaps Zen's most distinctive characteristic.  Birkin does ponder the changes that occur to the body during aging, which coincides with a desire to shed her image of beauty in order to be taken more seriously as an artist, as she opens up about her life-long insomnia problem, and her sleeping pills addiction that she’s had since a teenager.  This is a particularly uncomfortable section, like a portrait of depression, conveying her insecurities in a confessional manner, acknowledging she is anxiety-ridden, and has been for a long time, as she’s simply not able to shut off the brain, continually re-examining what could have been, playing out those possibilities over and over in her mind.  She also can’t throw things away, even old batteries, and calls it a sickness, so her home is a cluttered stockpile for collectibles, where nothing appears organized, but things are strewn around in a haphazard manner.  Good luck trying to find anything.  Fortunately, she knows on some level that nothing is lost, but to another degree nothing is found as well.  Perhaps surprisingly, there is little glamor in their lives, living as quietly and unpretentiously as possible, which is not always the case for people who work in the creative arts, so there’s a refreshing transparency in their relationship that may not have existed beforehand.  At times illuminating, this is also challenging, where the music is easily the least compelling aspect, using a stripped back style and an unconventional approach to its subject, where the question is whether any of this is effectively transferred to the audience.  Is this a lasting piece of art that will cement their legacy, or is it just a love letter from a daughter to her mother?  In 2002, Birkin received a diagnosis of leukemia and underwent various cancer treatments, as the lingering disease continued to cause health challenges, including a mild stroke two years ago, eventually succumbing at the age of 76 earlier this year, just a year after the film was released.  According to French President Emmanuel Macron, he described Birkin as a “French icon” and a “complete artist” who “bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us.”