Unrated. 2 hours, 2 minutes,. At the Chez Artiste.
It’s useful, if not all that accurate, to think of Serge Gainsbourg as France’s answer to Dylan. “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” might be read as a Gallic version of “I’m Not There,” the 2007 meditation on the many faces of Bob.
Both singers became rock/pop omnivores during the 1960s and ’70s, and both were artist-provocateurs who delighted in poking the culture in its tender spots. Both were ugly men who slept with beautiful women; both had an almost unholy gift for outrage.
Joann Sfar’s worshipful biopic is much more linear than “I’m Not There.” But Sfar’s a fan, and his movie is a busy love letter to Gainsbourg that skates along the surface of the legend.
That said, what a legend. The parts of “Gainsbourg” that seem most fanciful are often the parts that turn out to be hard biographical fact: the childhood spent hiding from the Nazis in the classroom and forests of Limoges; talking naà ve teen pop star France Gall (Sara Forestier) into recording a dirty song (1965’s “Lollipop”); cheating on wives and girlfriends simultaneously; inciting right-wing riots with his 1978 reggae version of “La Marseillaise.”
The French actor Eric Elmosnino plays Gainsbourg, and he’s a ringer for the man one journalist likened to a “drowsy turtle.” He has the singer’s screw-you charisma down, too.
The cluttered frames of “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” pass by in a rush of retro bric-a-brac. If you have the details of the man’s life committed to memory — meaning if you’re French — there’s still a lot of fun to be had playing spot-the- reference and name-the-demi-celebrity.
