Gainsbourg (vie heroique): Film Review

PARIS -- The latest name to roll off the French biopic production line that produced Piaf, Sagan and Chanel is that of Serge Gainsbourg, a talented singer-songwriter of the 1950s and 1960s who devoted his later years to blowing musical raspberries. What was heroic about Gainsbourg's life? If anything, his vast consumption of booze and cigarettes. This is a hero for rebellious adolescents, and while Gainsbourg (vie heroique) will strike a chord with local sensibilities, non-Gallic audiences may be underwhelmed by this portrayal of an artist whose main claim to world fame is a pop song in which a woman simulates an orgasm.