Actress-singer Birkin bringing her music to town
Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Several years before disco queen Donna Summer sparked the puritan ire of America with her orgasmic oohing and aahing, British actress Jane Birkin released Je t'aime moi non plus in France in 1969.
A breathy, pulsating turn, spoken not so much sung, it provides some unmistakeable and unforgettable sound effects, although it never seems a voyeuristic, lascivious stunt. Even at the tail end of the swinging 1960s, the song, made by Birkin with her then partner the singer and musician Serge Gainsbourg, raised more than a few eyebrows. Thinking about its release almost 40 years on, it certainly puts into perspective our current global fascination with Ms. Jackson and NippleGate.
For some of us, Birkin, who will perform in Jakarta on Thursday, may be a little known figure. For others who have been aware of her in her many incarnations -- model-cum-actress-cum- singer-cum-activist -- her appearance in Jakarta is an exciting event.
Born into a middle-class British family, she became known in the definitive '60s hip movie Blow-Up (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, famously appearing nude in one scene. The following year, she moved to France, meeting Gainsbourg and embarking on a relationship that lasted many years.
The biographical release issued in conjunction with her visit notes that she has appeared in more than 30 films, but other than French speakers and devoted cinemagoers, most of us probably have not seen her in the movies. The mainstream movie exceptions would be the two Agatha Christie whodunnits Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, in which she costarred with such Hollywood heavyweights as Bette Davis, Peter Ustinov and Mia Farrow (the former), and the best of British (Diana Rigg et al) in the latter. For Evil, she played a seemingly mousy, put-upon wife who, it turns out, is in cahoots with her husband.
Always on the fringes of celebrity but never really choosing to enter the lion's den as a full-fledged star, Birkin, 57, has done things her way throughout her career. Like her contemporary Charlotte Rampling, she elected to stay put in France, far from the Hollywood sphere, acting in movies, working on her music with Gainsbourg, caring for her daughters (one of whom is the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg) and also becoming an activist on human rights issues. Her reed-thin, gap-toothed and undeniably quirky beauty, with a cigarette inevitably hanging from her lips, remains an enduring image from the 1970s.
With Gainsbourg, she made the European hit album Baby alone in Babylone in 1983 (devoted fans of this album consider it Gainsbourg's love letter to Birkin after their breakup), and later the same decade started performing on stage.
She continued with her music after Gainsbourg's death in 1991, and has since 1999 worked with the Algerian violinist Djamel Benyelles. They have collaborated on what they call the "orientalizing" of her music, using North African, Andalusian and gypsy influences, particularly on 2002's Arabesque.
Her stop in Jakarta is part of the tour, arranged by the French Cultural Center, and will give local audiences the chance to hear her unique voice, often described as breathy, reedy and fragile. It's a rare opportunity to see a unique individual, and one not to be missed.
i-BOX: ------------------------ Jane Birkin's Arabesque Supported by Djam&Fam Thursday, Feb. 19 Gedung Kesenian Jakarta Jl. Gedung Kesenian No. 1, Central Jakarta
Tickets: Rp 75.000 and Rp 100.000 Reservations only from Gedung Kesenian Jakarta tel. (021) 380 8283 or 344 1892 --------------------------------------