I Love You, I Don't (1976)

In Serge Gainsbourg's film Je T'aime Moi Non Plus, we get to witness female masochism at its most extreme and overt, where Gainsbourg's real-life wife, the provocatively stimulating Jane Birkin, plays Johnny, who falls for Joe Dallesandro's gay boy Krassky and spends the remainder of the movie trying to satisfy him sexually, although he can only get off through anal sex, which proves to be excruciatingly painful for our heroine, who doesn't care because she loves the boy, see, and she hopes that somehow he will be transformed by her love and devotion. He's not.What does this mean? Is it a metaphor for male/female relationships, where women are, sadly, prone to being treated like garbage by the (generally unworthy) men they love? The film doesn't offer any judgment one way or another, which of course is soooooo French, and a good thing, in actuality; the actions of the characters speak volumes without any preaching being necessary.My IMDb rating: 7

lovely.JTMNP is for fans of Showgirls, of movies that seek a level of sophistication beyond their reach, and in the process reveal layers of untold truth.it's second rate, cheesy, silly, extravagant, ribald, shallow. and in that, utterly wonderful. it shows us a time and place that couldn't have been shown to us with an intentional eye.i'm still 'haunted' by many scenes in the film, by swirling sunny buttocks, and the screams of anal invasion, and the scarf snapping lover of the hero. watch it if you can find it. serge gainsbourg was france.

We had hoped that Serge Gainsbourg's most well-known film would demonstrate his interesting - if a bit twisted - perspective and style. Unfortunately, by the time "Je t'aime moi non plus" was made, Serge had become an "old fart", to borrow a recurring line from the movie. Instead of the inventive, hip Serge of the 'sixties, pulling musical influences from around the globe and spicing them up with naughty references, he had become the jaded fatalist, using shock value out of habit rather than effect. It would also appear that he had been a bit too influenced by Godard's "Weekend" for his own good. Long tracking shots of the protagonist's truck passing aimlessly through a barren landscape littered with wrecked cars are employed at least four times. What this film and its actors really needed were a plot and some actual dialogue. Birkin, Dallesandro and the rest of the cast do credible jobs with what they've been given to work with, but their doomed love triangle is bog-standard 1950s melodrama, with a gay twist. Absolutely wasted here is Gerard Depardieu, who turns in an awkward and unconvincing cameo as a homosexual beastialist. Thankfully, Gainsbourg still had talent in him as a composer, and the film benefits from his soundtrack. I suspect he was not encouraged to attempt more directorial efforts, as after "Je t'aime..." he only did vanity films.

I love the multi-talented Serge Gainsbourg, He can act, direct, compose music, write, etc.. so maybe this review is a little biased. Anyway I have been following Joe Dallesandro's career for a while now and having seen almost all of his movies I would have to say he is the best in this one, teamed up with the beautiful Jane Birkin they make a great on-screen pair! This movie follows the Life a of a gay garbage man named Krasky, (played by Joe) who meets up with the boyish looking Johnny (Jane Birkin), and they hit it off. Krasky leaves his male lover and moves in with Johnny. In the end things don't work out because Krasky is gay, (and he reconciles with his lover), and For Johnny anal sex is just too painful. Gerard Depardieu has a small but funny part as a perverted bum riding a horse.