Jane Birkin, "La Femme et le TGV"

«L’amour physique est sans issue », physical love is hopeless, Jane Birkin whispered in her scandalous smash hit «Je T’aime moi non plus» - written and co-performed by Serge Gainsbourg – in 1969. Meanwhile, 47 years have passed, but the guarded, charmingly tousled lady, who is sitting right in front of me at the Hotel Belvedere in Locarno, has not lost her magnificently raspy voice. Even though the 69 year old is suffering from a freshly broken rib and a weak voice (due to a cold), she is not any less captivating than she had been when she was first introduced to the world.

Miss Birkin has come to Locarno for the world premiere of her new movie «La Femme et le TGV»; a Swiss short film, directed by Timo Von Gunten. The movie beautifully shows the value of fantasy. The protagonist, Elise – who is played by Birkin – exchanges letters with the conductor of the TGV that passes her house every day. With the start of this exchange, Elise’s life suddenly has meaning again. She has, however, never actually seen the man. Their friendship does not exist in the present moment. Bruno only becomes alive when Elise is reading his letters, so – in a sense – he is only truly alive in her imagination.

Elise reminds me of Miss Birkin who also seems to live a bit more in her imagination, her fantasy, than in real life. To this day, she still passionately sings the songs written by her former partner Serge Gainsbourg; and she talks about him a lot. The two stayed close friends even after their relationship had ended. When he passed away in 1991, Birkin was heartbroken. It was over this heartbreak that the relationship with her then-partner fell apart and she has been living alone ever since. It seems that the memory of Gainsbourg is enough for her. I ask Miss Birkin if memories are important to her, if she believes that it’s not always just the current moment – reality – that counts. She looks at me, thoughtfully then – as she does so often – into the distance. She is not quite sure she knows what I mean, she claims. She believes in ghosts, sometimes, she says. Then, after a few sentences she gently lets my question slide but keeps looking at me piercingly for the entirety of the talk. It might be because I am sitting right opposite her, less than two meters between us. But before I had asked her the question, her gaze had only ever briefly rested on me, as it had on the other handful of journalists sitting around me. Thus, I think she somehow did understand my question after all but cannot quite put her answer into words. Maybe I only wish she understood me, but a few moments later she starts talking about living in the past a lot, and thereby confirms my assumption.

The songs she performs today have been written by Gainsbourg a long time ago, she says. She starts talking about songs that mean especially much to her (for example «Fuir le Bonheur De Peur Qu’il ne Se Sauve»). And now that she is talking about Gainsbourg she is starting to beam, nobody could tell she has a broken rib anymore. The songs are so close to her and they comfort her, she tells us. She starts giggling when getting lost in her memories. To questions, which she could answer with a few sentences, she responds by telling entire stories. In one of them she tells us about her concert at the Bataclan in Paris in 1987. She mentions having gone on stage without make up and with short hair for the first time; because she wanted the audience to not focus on her but rather pay attention to the music. Considering she is one of the most influential style icons of her time, it is surprising how uncomfortable she seems to be with the way the world scrutinizes her appearance. That is also a reason why she does not watch her own movies. She claims she is not brave enough, to see herself on the screen: «I don’t like seeing that face. I don’t think I like that face anymore». She becomes more contemplative again.

She says that she does movies because she loves acting and not because she wants to see her own performance. That is also why she always sneaks out of premieres. When I ask if that means that, for her, a movie is over once she has done her part of if she enjoys seeing the audiences’ reactions. She says, “yes, absolutely!” and beams at me, her tooth gap clearly visible. She says it makes her happy when people are touched by her movies. «That’s lovely. Lovely, lovely», she says dreamily, then, more seriously: «It matters». When I respond by saying that her new movie had moved me deeply, she looks at me, genuinely surprised and says gaily „Ah oui, c’est vrai?“.

The conversation inevitably circles back to Gainsbourg. When she is asked about the dramatic public fights the two used to have, she laughs. Why, for example, did she once throw a pie in his face in a restaurant and then hurl herself into the Saine? “Why not?” she answers, giggling. And when she is asked if the reason for those dramatic scenes was the passion in their relationship she responds, without skipping a beat: “I think the reason was, that I was very drunk!” Jane Birkin: Charming and cautious yet witty and cheeky; and, above all, and despite her clear British accent: Oh so French.

«L’amour physique est sans issue»; who knows. But what I know for sure after this conversation: It is not only the physical but at least equally so the fantastical, that is of great value to Elise; and to Jane Birkin. As long as one is rooted in the here and now, a little dreaming has never hurt nobody. It won’t hurt me either, when I dream about Jane Birkin maybe being a bit contagious so that, after this meeting, I will go through life with a little more of a «je ne sais quoi» myself. She herself definitely has more than enough to spare.

This text was originally published in August, 2016 on annabelle.ch (in German).