Slideshow
KUNG-FU MASTER!
France, 1988
Directed by Agnès Varda
Starring Jane Birkin, Mathieu Demy
In French with English subtitles
80 min.
“Do all women, once in their life, fall for a young boy?” 40-year-old single mom played by Jane Birkin (who co-wrote the film) develops a passionate crush on her daughter’s 14-year-old classmate, a video game whiz-kid with a passion for Kung-Fu Master. Varda’s son Mathieu plays the boy, and Birkin’s daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a classmate. Bringing sympathy and understanding to this startling premise, Varda achieves what she described as “a pure truth which comes out of people acting together with their close family or friends.”
Presented with support from The George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema
Reviews
“What allows it to work is that it is about feelings, not actions. Varda draws an invisible line at physical frankness in the film, so there is never a moment when we feel embarrassment for the characters (or the actors). The film really is about the phenomenon of the romantic crush—about how another person suddenly can seem to embody an ideal for us, especially if that person is distant enough or different enough so that we do not have to deal with their real-life situation.”
– Roger Ebert