Posted at 11:30 a.m.
For her very first production, Charlotte Gainsbourg has chosen a title in the form of a nod – and a tribute – to Jane B. by Agnès V., the film that Agnès Varda dedicated to Jane Birkin in 1988. Thirty-four years later, Jane by Charlotte is not so much the portrait of an artist as a conversation between a daughter and her mother, both actresses and singers, both alike and yet so different. The two women thus walk intimate paths with frankness and modesty. This delicate balance makes the exercise particularly moving.
Started in Tokyo a few years ago, when Jane presented her show dedicated to the songs of Serge Gainsbourg with a symphony orchestra, Jane by Charlotte also passes through New York, but the story takes place above all in the intimate sphere, the country house in Brittany is particularly highlighted here. One of the key scenes of the film is also the visit to the famous house at 5, rue de Verneuil in Paris, practically transformed into a museum, where Jane had not set foot again since her 12 years of living together with the man who wrote him so many great songs.
The table is set from the start as Jane evokes Charlotte’s childhood and the secretive nature of a little girl she didn’t really know how to approach, she who, by contrast, has always lived her life like a big open book. Sometimes more innocuous, often more serious, the conversations revolve around aging, the meaning of family, the place that everyone occupies in it, without forgetting the great wound left by Kate, Jane’s eldest daughter, who died tragically in 2013.
Charlotte Gainsbourg was able, in this film dedicated to her mother, to draw a vibrant portrait of their relationship.
Launched last year at the Cannes Film Festival, during which a first version of this text was published, Jane by Charlotte is now playing on the big screen in Quebec.
Documentary
Jane by Charlotte
Charlotte Gainsbourg
With Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg,
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