The Avon Theatre presents a French Cinematheque screening of
KUNG FU MASTER (1987)
Directed by Agnes Varda
Thursday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m.
A lovely, bittersweet companion to JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. from director Agnes Varda and star/muse Jane Birkin, KUNG-FU MASTER has nothing to do with martial arts – the film’s title comes from an arcade video game played obsessively in the film by a teenage boy, Julien. Birkin delivers one of her finest performances as a lonely 40-year old woman who finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age? KUNG-FU MASTER is truly a family affair: Varda’s son with the late director Jacques Demy, Mathieu Demy, plays Julien – and Birkin appears here with her two real-life daughters: Charlotte Gainsbourg (from Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA) and Lou Doillon, her child with well-known filmmaker Jacques Doillon. Briefly released in the late 1980s in the U.S. and long unavailable here, KUNG-FU MASTER has been beautifully restored from the original 35mm camera negative. “It’s a film in which all the younger actors are the children of the director and lead actress” says Varda. “It was like a picnic, you know?”
“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
Ticket prices are as follows: Carte Blanche Members: FREE, Members: $7, Students & Seniors: $9, Nonmembers: $12. To purchase tickets visit www.avontheatre.org or the box office.