Charlotte Gainsbourg's soft voice and awkward physical presence can make distress painfully convincing. We value the human detail she brings to difficult material, though her work with Lars von Trier also shows how badly the writing can let her down.
Fi1m perspective
In Antichrist (2009), Charlotte Gainsbourg's grief is physically awkward, and the attempts to discuss it sound inadequate beside her. Credited simply as She, she gives the character a mixture of pain and sexual need that resists a tidy explanation. We were moved by the early scenes because she makes enduring that pain look exhausting. She gives us a reason to care about this woman before the film begins treating her distress as an opportunity to frighten us.
The career is broader than the association with suffering suggests. L'Effrontée (1985) was the early breakthrough; steady work in French cinema followed, before 21 Grams (2003) brought wider international recognition. Michel Gondry's fantasy The Science of Sleep (2006) offered a lighter setting for an actor whose soft voice and minimal expression need not belong only to people in distress. It is worth remembering that film when the von Trier collaborations threaten to become the whole account of her work.
Von Trier gets something forceful from her in Antichrist, but he also asks her to compensate for writing that treats female sexuality too bluntly as something frightening. Opposite Willem Dafoe's He, her performance makes the therapy scenes compelling: Dafoe takes the exchanges seriously, while Gainsbourg makes the inadequacy of his explanations difficult to ignore. These scenes hold our attention because both actors take the couple's difficulties seriously. Her performance cannot make the writing any more thoughtful. We cannot recommend it beyond those already drawn to confrontational horror.
Melancholia (2011) and Nymphomaniac (2013) extended the von Trier collaboration, and help explain why grief, sexuality and psychological extremity loom so large in her reputation. The danger is that these demanding parts become the only work people expect of her. Her quiet delivery and economy of expression leave plenty of room for less punishing material. We would welcome more directors taking an interest in that possibility; putting Gainsbourg through an ordeal is no guarantee of giving her a good part.
Biography
Charlotte Gainsbourg is a British-French actress and singer. Born on 21 July 1971 in London, she is the daughter of actress and singer Jane Birkin and singer and actor Serge Gainsbourg, and was raised in Paris.
She made her film debut in 1984 and has appeared in numerous films, including collaborations with Lars von Trier. She played the role of She in Antichrist (2009), for which she received the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Other notable credits include Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013) and Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013), and 21 Grams (2003). She has also won two César Awards.
