Je t'aime moi non plus

Rough translation: “I love you, me neither,” the title of Serge Gainsbourg’s biggest hit song, a breathy duet with his wife Jane Birkin – and also the name of his first film as writer-director, which also stars Birkin. She’s Johnny, a waitress in desert truck stop cafe (the film is set in the American west but everyone speaks French). Enter Krass (Warhol star Joe Dallesandro), a haulage driver with his gay lover (Hugues Quester) in tow. Krass is immediately drawn to the boyish looking Johnny. What ensues is carnal, confusing, comic, tragic, and oh so cool, the cult movie you didn’t know you needed to see.

Simply put, Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus is one crazy film and even after forty years, it retains the power to leave even the most jaded of moviegoers startled by the on-screen goings-on. At times reminiscent of a French take on the filmography of the late, great Russ Meyer, this meditation on sex, love, lust, death and misplaced machismo is one of those rare films that could comfortably screen in arthouses and grindhouses alike while arousing outrage (among other things) from the patrons of both. As a cinematic equivalent to Gainsbourg’s musical endeavors, it does cast an undeniable spell on viewers, and seeing two of the most distinctive sex symbols of the Seventies paired up together is certainly compelling.

Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com

Don’t bother going to see my film, see Gainsbourg’s. That is a work of art.

Francois Truffaut

Gainsbourg, like Prince after him, came from music to filmmaking with a strong cinematic sense…he doesn’t put a foot wrong. [The film is] genuinely, eccentrically Gainsbourgian.

Glenn Kenny, The New York Times