Kung-fu master!

The plot is understandable for the initial 50 minutes or so. The emotions and feelings that are not meant to be shared or are considered taboo are brought out innocently and "understandably". But it all changes once the plots takes you to London. It remains no lonher 'understandable" and begs the viewr to as the question: "why?'. Birkin's mother's suggestions of handling her emotions still baffles me, and I just can't imagine that conversation happening in any way. That scene and then the subsequent 20 minutes before the end just doesn't do it for me and what could have been a genuine story of desire, feelings, boundaries, temptations, ethics etc., turns into something unrealistic and unbelievable.

The story here is about a woman falling for the 14 year old classmate of her daughter's, but forget about the story now, it's not a prurient film of course and seeing just a 'social issue' movie would miss the whole point. This is a small exercise on context by Varda but as astute as ever.

Varda seems to be parodying the notion that her film would have just a social relevance by having the AIDS scare of the time so prevalent throughout - the film is from the late 80s, it evokes a distinct air of the time when youths crowded arcade parlors and TV segments on HIV sounded doom for mankind - or preempts it, perhaps unsure herself if it's not unavoidably going to be that in the end.

But see something else, about the narrative horizon in which things acquire their significance.

The woman who simply has these feelings one day that threaten to bring down everything, in context of what she experiences, it's a real affection for the boy, it shakes her in earnest. The boy who acts all grownup around her, bringing her flowers like a man would, later in a hotel plans to seduce her, but Varda has specifically taken care to show that he becomes just a kid with his peers or always off to a video game.

The film's title comes from a video game that he plays in the arcade parlor, in the game's nested story-within a hero fights monsters to make it all the way to the top level so he can set free a princess kept prisoner. This is of course a deliberate confluence by Varda. We'd like to think of love in this way, as something that frees us, but what if it's sometimes fiction? Meaning, the woman is simply not mindful that the boy inhabits a wholly different context than hers, simply playing a game of love.

And this is what Varda marvelously depicts later in a scene where the kids are goofing with Nazi paraphernalia in a room. A parent who walked in and thought the kids have strayed into budding Nazism would have only been misled by appearances, inhabiting a horizon in which objects (Nazi stuff) are charged with their narrative significance. But as the scene plays out Varda shows that it's evidently just another game for them.

This is the exercise, on how phenomena give rise to illusory narrative, on how illusory narrative traps us in illusory significance, chimeras of our desires. It isn't about nostalgia or passionate love. Love doesn't equal truth, unless it's shared in truth. This was a point made in Le Bonheur. In my ongoing project I'm after filmmakers who abet mindfulness, the wisdom that comes from it, and Varda has this.

A requiem for a long-lost youth begging to close the door on the past bereavements by tricking the ungainly mother living her lorn childhood dream; This time with the pure, yet infeasible love of a playful child.

Such doomed to failure passion for an immature boy seems to be incontrovertible to all the sane,mature beings, yet the irresistible temptation of being cherished and loved by someone after a long time, even for a small moment, makes the ill-fated adult mother blind to the consequences.

An uncanny story which which may choose to express itself simply and plainly, by not going too deep and remains at the surface with its characters, but still is satisfying,well-crafted and well-played.

/ B+

I wonder whether I can add more substantively than what Roger Ebert wrote in his review (comparisons to Murmur of the Heart as well, and I assume she and/or Birkin saw that at some point), since that contained many aspects regarding what Agnes Varda is doing here that I pondered when watching this ambitious and challenging film; not, or not merely, for the questions raised in the emotional (and maybe but left ambigious physical) relationship between a 40 year old mother and her 15 year old daughter's friend, but because the depiction of this bond between a middle aged woman and teenage boy both wants us to empathize and to understand it should not be so automatic to judge such a thing (and to be sure many would snap to judge, immediately, without another thought), especially when these are decent and kind people at the center.

What I focused on and admired was the intrinsically personal nature of what was in the frame, and what is on the margins ("deviant" sex as a moral issue) as the socio-political waking nightmare of the time visa-vi the height of AIDS (and that uncanny and almost funny-in-naivete moment where the kids are talking about uh fascist imagery kind of and Julien draws a cartoon Hitler, yikes, thanks mom for keeping that in the movie). This is a film where the director very consciously after all has one of her closest friends at the time starring in (and Co writing) an unsentimental melodrama about a relationship her character forms with a boy played by the director's son, and Birkins own kids and parents are in the film playing the character's children and parents, and there's equal time given to the inner emotional lives of both the woman and the teens.

It's the kind of film I wish I had read more up on (or watched one of Varda's charming introductions and interviews) since taking it on its own terms the lines between a kind of story that Varda had explored before, in a way, ie Le Bonheur and the difficulty of how ones heart can lead one into disarray and tragedy, and almost a kind of not documentary but a (forgive the Sly & Family Stone reference) "family affair" of a kind. One could also argue Varda casting her son shields from criticism, like "hey, you can't attack what's happening here, not only do they consent they're my BFF and kid, after all." Not that I can see that many critics doing that given how sensitively Varda shows us the events as the unfold and unravel, but they could is the thing.

I do think once this relationship does come undone, Varda and Birkin, perhaps to save some time in narrative economy in a tight 80 minutes, use narration from Mary Jane to explain whats happened, and it feels a little anti-climactic, not to mention what we see as Julien's accomplishment with the video game. On the other hand, Kung-Fu Master isn't a film about the salacious details of such a pairing, and to Varda's credit there is never anything explicit or sexual or anything that goes beyond kissing and hugging, so it is focused very squarely on character and what it means to have emotional immaturity (ie the "coolness" Julien sees of smoking *cigarettes) and a nostalgia for young love for Mary Jane, and that makes the film work for me.

It's not a major work, but it is a good one and successfully navigates a tricky subject and makes it profound by making it about joy and heartache and the simple fun of being together on a beach or making funny sounds and watching someone play a video game. And I'll lastly add (the now late) Birkin and Demy give affecting, totally natural performances here.

(*Maybe Varda approved of that. Did Mathieu's dad, Jacques Demy? Lord knows).

Kung Fu Master is about a 14 y/o who fell head over heals with his classmates mother, who shockingly returned the favor. It is very 'French' at that. Other quirks of the film is that it is family affair. Its stars Charlotte Gainsborough and her mom Jane Birkin, and Varda's son Matthew.

I definitely watched this brand of 'French' films.

More about a study of the extends of Human Sexuality under cut with smart Social Commentary. This time around AIDS, and the idea of loving someone with a certain kind of baggage.

I always have a rule with this film with moral bent.

If its actively trying to be weird and tries to remove the moral compass of the situation, it kind of fails. This falls deeply in that category. Jane Birkin's character is so enthused by the attention AND I felt that the two times in the film that this situation actually is placed on the spot is not enough against how many times Varda tries to 'dramatize' and 'make sense' of the situation. It clearly does not irk a lot since the male character is not as sexualized AND given the free reign as the active pursuer of the relationship. The ending does work on his end though. But her story needs more.

This is very bad. Always - there is an adult in the situation guys. She is a bad example. I hate how Varda is just trying to justify the relationship in an unironic way.

What makes me doubly sad is that Varda directed this film wonderfully. Well photographed, well directed, and phenomenally acted. Its practically crisp. I wished that it went harder to be honest. Its a material that needs more reckoning, more reactions from others. Its too focused on her in a bad way.

Not Recommended.