Je t'aime moi non plus (film)

1976 French film

10 March 1976 (1976-03-10)

Running time

89 minutesCountryFranceLanguageFrench

Je t'aime moi non plus (English title: I Love You, Me Neither) is a 1976 feature film written, directed, and scored by Serge Gainsbourg, starring Jane Birkin, Hugues Quester and Joe Dallesandro, and featuring a cameo by Gérard Depardieu.

Plot

A frail and love-starved young woman, Johnny (Jane Birkin), works in a truckstop café in the middle of nowhere. One day two gay truckers enter, manly and worldwise Krassky (Joe Dallesandro) and his younger lover Padovan (Hugues Quester). Padovan is young and handsome, but immature and rather a handful.

Krassky, tired of taking care of Padovan, who keeps getting into trouble, discovers in himself an attraction for this boyish girl. She in turn falls head over heels for him. They start a relationship; though Krassky hesitates before the meager feminine graces of curveless Johnny, he ends up being charmed by her naïve and unconditional love.

She is willing to accept anything out of love for him, including anal sex. Although inexperienced at this, so that her screams of pain cause them to be thrown out of several motels. In the end, the back of Krassky's dirty garbage truck will be the theatre of their union.

Furiously jealous, Padovan tries to kill Johnny by suffocating her. Krassky intervenes and saves Johnny, but does it so casually that Johnny gets enraged and insults him. Krassky then returns to his first love and leaves with him, abandoning Johnny to her café, brokenhearted and lonely once again.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

Cast

Jane Birkin as Johnny
Joe Dallesandro as Krassky
Hugues Quester as Padovan
Reinhard Kolldehoff as Boris
Gérard Depardieu as man on horse
Jimmy Davis as Moïse
Maïté Nahyr as prostitute
Liliane Rovère as motel client
Michel Blanc as worker
Claudia Butenuth as customer

Background and production

Je t'aime moi non plus was the first film directed by Gainsbourg.^[5] It took its title from his song "Je t'aime... moi non plus" and stars Jane Birkin, his partner, who performed the song with him in a scandal-provoking 1969 release. Dallesandro, cast as Krassky, was known for his muscular build.^[1]^[4] Depardieu appears briefly as a gay local.^[2]^[4]

The film's themes of sexual freedom and the ultimate unachievability of all-encompassing love are typical of the 1970s^[1] and of Gainsbourg's work.

Release and reception

Released in France on March 10, 1976, the film was panned in reviews as immoral and did poorly, but was defended by French cinephiles including François Truffaut.^[1]^[3] It was released on video by the independent label Western Connection in 1994, and in the mid-2000s it was released on DVD.^[2] A restored version was released in the United States in 2019.^[3]

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a 91% approval critic response based on 11 reviews, indicating "Fresh" and an average score of 8.0/10.^[6]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Je t'aime moi non plus" (in German). Arte TV. September 2, 2008. Archived from the original on December 18, 2013.
^ ^a ^b ^c Cline, Rich (June 16, 2007). "I Love You, I Don't". Shadows on the Wall (review). Retrieved October 6, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c Kenny, Glenn (October 10, 2019). "'Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus' Review: Serge Gainsbourg's Oddball Directorial Debut". The New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c Sargent, Jack (January 2004). "Hot, Hard Cocks and Tight, Tight Unlubricated Assholes: Transgression, Sexual Ambiguity and 'Perverse' Pleasures in Serge Gainsbourg's Je t'aime moi non plus". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved October 6, 2022.
^ Travers, James (May 12, 2007). "Review of the film Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)". frenchfilms.org.
^ "I Love You, I Don't", Rotten Tomatoes, retrieved 2021-10-31