omniscience, a free play between what one person is remembering while another is speaking and maybe a third is witnessing. Per- haps contrived only for the pur- pose of getting the point across, the device borders on the experi- mental, and some viewers might be confused while others get the gist. Up to that point, Irish direc- tor Jim Sheridan (MY LEFT FOOT) presents the action plainly without many ruffles and curli- cues. Carol Spier’s lovely design and Caleb Deschanel’s photog- raphy conjure a fairy-tale feel from the opening blue-toned shots of falling snow, as though we’re in a snow-globe or picture book.


Jane Alexander, Elias Koteas and Marton Csokas also appear. The faultless 2.40:1 image has Dolby 5.1 language options in English, Spanish and French (and a 2.0 English DVS track), with subtitles in same. Sheridan (reportedly unhappy with the pic- ture) offers no commentary but


appears in four making-of’s. A loud trailer grimly gives away every twist and must be avoided.


GAINSBOURG, A HEROIC LIFE


Gainsbourg, une vie héroique 2011, Music Box Films, $43.95, 122m, BR By Tim Lucas


This directorial debut by French comics artist Joann Sfar adapts his own graphic novel about the life of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg (1928-91). The early part, which focuses on the imaginative childhood of young Lucien Ginsberg (Kacey Mottet Klein)—drawn to the seedy and licentious sides of life against a backdrop of occupied France and his own Jewish self- consciousness and self-loath- ing—is wonderful, rich enough to have sustained an entire feature. The sort of macabre enchant- ment that Tim Burton’s work of- ten aspires to be, with a twist of


A ghostly image in DREAM HOUSE.


Roland Topor, it’s made all the more marvelous by the participa- tion of Doug Jones (Guillermo del Toro’s monster man of choice) as an almost Nosferatu- like animatronic exaggeration of Gainsbourg’s initial adult image, an elegant combination of imagi- nary friend and badge of shame. When the film transitions to Ginsberg’s adult life as Gains- bourg (Éric Elmosnino, a virtual clone of the original), it begins pedalling too fast to contain too vast a story and ultimately fails to present a coherent biography, almost completely overlooking many important chapters, notably Gainsbourg’s career masterpiece, the 1971 album L’HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON. The film also fails to acknowledge Gainsbourg’s career as a screen actor and to dis- tinguish Gainsbourg from Gains- barre, the shades-wearing identity he adopted later in his career to further offset the embarrassment of celebrity. Later scenes feel so disjointed it’s impossible to see


8


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84