Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque)

The newest in the current wave of French language biopics, 'Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque)' details the self-destructive adventures of 60's/70's Enfant Terrible, Serge Gainsbourg. The opening shot is of a young, pre-moniker Lucien Ginsburg (Kacey Mottet-Klein) on a beach, smoking a cigarette while propositioning a girl, and Joann Sfar's ambitious directorial debut begins as it means to go on. Aside from various interjections of narrative the film, for the most part, functions as a 130-minute extension of that moment. This is not necessarily a criticism however; stylistically it is suave, inventive and sexy, and I have never before been left feeling so libidinous and enticed by nicotine in such equally generous measures. The film is weakened though to an extent by a certain lack of substance, sacrificed as it is in favour of beautiful women, billowing smoke and anecdotal accuracy.

The strong first half of the film sets up the surreal element to Sfar's auteurship in the form of Gainsbourg's "gueule" - or "mug" in the English subtitles - an unsettling apparition who represents a troubled inner psyche. While Mottet-Klein plays the defiant and brazen young Jewish child in wartime France, this gueule appears as an enormous floating Jew's head, following him and risking his discovery by the Nazis. Lucien uses his skills as a painter to distract himself from feeling like an outsider as he queues to pick up his compulsory Star of David badge and fantasises about women three times his age. Later though, as the fully grown Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino) becomes more confident in his abilities both in music and seduction, this gueule reappears as a tall, stylishly vampiric marionette, not unlike 'The Count' from sesame street. The gueule by this point functions as an alter ego named "Gainsbarre"; the devil on Gainsbourg's shoulder, driving the self-destructive behaviour against which he is battling. Elmosnino's performance of this inner battle is quite fantastic; emphasised by an uncanny likeness to his real life counterpart, the transition from a talented but uncertain bar pianist to the suave yet abrasive, walking death-wish he becomes by the end of the film is very impressive. He is not done any great favours however, by Sfar's insistence on total biographical inclusion. The film flows as a series of fleeting, seemingly disconnected encounters with various people, making it difficult to cover anything in depth. Arguably each encounter bears some significance to Gainsburg's development as a character, but this development may have been explored more effectively through a merging of certain characters at the sacrifice of historical accuracy.

When push comes to shove, the film is largely enjoyable; visually Sfar has taken a lot of care in getting it exactly as he wanted and it's certainly worth seeing. The casting is notably excellent, particularly with regard to the array of entrancing beauties flitting about in various stages of undress. The soundtrack, too, is well incorporated and scenes like Gainsbourg and Boris Vian's (Phillipe Katerine) duet of "Je Bois" leave you ready to sell a kidney just to be as cool as them. Unfortunately though, as the plot develops, the lack of character exploration makes the increasingly haggard protagonist seem somewhat one-dimensional as he spirals into alcoholism and maltreatment of his wife. By the end it is harder to empathise with Gainsbourg, and the character depth achieved early on becomes lost to a degree behind an ever-darkening cloud of cigarette smoke.