I Love You, I Don’t

The perverse directorial debut of Serge Gainsbourg, who also came up with the famous title song. From the very first scene, I Love You, I Don’t leaves no doubt about the fact that the main protagonist is going to be anal sex, and the goal moral provocation. Krasski (Joe Dallesandro, a gay icon from the New York underground who appeared in works by Warhol and Morrissey) and Padovan (Hugues Quester) are garbage collectors. And as befits them, they adore unclean, disgusting, shameful things. In short: moral decay. On their journey through the French boondocks—an area reminiscent of Texas—the two men, who are involved in an ambiguous relationship, meet an androgynous waitress named Johnny (Jane Birkin). Thus begins a sexual threesome that achieves non-normative ecstasy on-screen and brings to life the dirtiest, morbid erotic fantasies imaginable. They are observed by a local peasant (Gerard Depardieu) with a mixture of arousal and revulsion. Gainsbourg’s film valorizes sex as an autonomous, rebellious force detached from procreation and thus independent of family structures. The film features trash aesthetics, homoerotic fantasies, rock energy and an erotic allure emanating from the three main characters. It emanates so intensely that the film was banned in Great Britain for three decades.