JANE BY CHARLOTTE (2021) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Charlotte Gainsbourg
A home movie done as a series of conversations between singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and her mother, singer/actress Jane Birkin. The locations range from Paris to Tokyo, New York City to the South of France, and their exchanges cover everything from dogs and children to loss and regret to aging, pain and death. They know they're being filmed - they're doing the filming - but they're both so comfortable in front of the camera that it doesn't matter very much, and the act of making the movie becomes a part of the process that draws them closer together. Neither wears much makeup, and Birkin, in her 70s, actually seems to grow older as the film goes on. You get a real sense watching it that both women know their time together is limited, and that Charlotte's determined to capture as much of her mother as she can before it's too late. It turned out to be Birkin's final screen appearance.
