Too much of everything

The Age of Commercialism

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The homosexual garbage truck driver Krassky (Joe Dallesandro) and his partner Padovan (Hugues Quester) stop at an isolated restaurant near the landfill where they work to drink a beer. They are served by the waitress Johnny (Jane Birkin) and she explains that the sleazy owner Boris (Reinhard Kolldehoff) has given that nickname to her since she wears short hair and has small breasts. Her tomboy style attracts Krassky and she has a crush on him. Boris warns her that Krassky is gay but Johnny dates him. When they go to bed, Krassky fails; however, when he sees her laying down on her face, he gets excited and sodomizes her. They start an unusual relationship while Padovan gets jealous. "Je t'aime moi non plus" is a cult perverted romance that called the attention of Jane Birkin to the audiences in the 70's. This actress is used and abused along the shallow story and made the title song famous mainly because of her moaning and screams. This song has also become a synonym of love and eroticism. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Paixão Selvagem" ("Wild Passion")

A decidedly off-beat love story as two characters from the fringe seek love in a wasteland of flesh and garbage, only to find it fleetingly in the back of a garbage truck. Kurant's luminous cinematography and Gainsbourg's leisurely pace do much to bring beauty to scenes that might otherwise be unbearably sordid.Dallesandro and Birkin are beautiful to look at and play a dysfunctional couple in more ways than one. The film explores the poignancy of emotional need, the vulnerability to abuse and the impossibility of communication within the couple. It's a tale of surprising tenderness and cruelty.Gainsbourg's soundtrack is surprisingly sparse, but used imaginatively and with more than a hint of irony.

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

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.