BY JEREMY CARR
“Do you like being filmed and talking about yourself,†director
Agnès Varda asks star and subject Jane Birkin in the 1987 film Jane B. for Agnès V. “Yes and no,†comes
the fittingly ambiguous answer. This fascinating film, recently released on a
Cinelicious Pics Blu-ray alongside Kung-Fu
Master! (1987), the purely fictional feature born from the
quasidocumentary’s unique study of Birkin as an actress and the art of
performance in general, is a movie made of memories, fantasies, and the hazy
area where the two coalesce. Essentially derived from Birkin’s stated fear of
turning 40, Jane B. for Agnès V. is a
ruminative examination of Birkin’s life and work, but it is just as much a
revealing look at Varda as an inventive filmmaker. “I'm filming your
self-portrait,†Varda says to Birkin, setting up the blurring of authorial
lines and not for the first time calling attention to the film’s self-conscious
formation. Constructed from a series of explicitly stylized situations, direct
to camera addresses, rigidly arranged tableaus, and further formal variations, Jane B. for Agnès V. is a cleverly
affected film on the part of both Varda and Birkin. Complicating matters even
more, when Birkin expresses trepidation about being chronicled, saying
specifically she is reluctant to look at the camera, Varda tries to alleviate
the discomfort by telling Birkin to think of the lens as if it were her (Varda)
that she (Birkin) was looking at instead. Of course, by doing so, she is
actually looking at us (the viewer), developing an additional layer of composed
artificiality. Jane B. for Agnès V.
is this kind of film.
There is sometimes purely sincere behavior from Birkin and those
captured by Varda’s probing camera; other times, the action is clearly staged
and simulated, to make and thematic point or strictly for aesthetic purposes.
To Birkin’s credit, her capacity for naturalism is evident—she is a great
actress—but just as the comfort of credibility begins to settle, Varda switches
gears and creates painterly reproductions and stunningly synthetic set-pieces.
There are about a dozen distinct segments through the course of Jane B. for Agnès V., and these brief
skits span a variety of genres and stories, each enabling Birkin to approach an
array of emotions and characterizations. The scene-by-scene randomness does
eventually shape into a larger portrait of an actress and her art, though there
is often no immediate connection between the scenarios—one may suggest a
correlation to a prior scene or a comment Birkin makes, others arbitrarily
stand alone.
Both Jane B. for Agnès V.
and Kung-Fu Master! are visually
heightened by the fabulous transfer for this Cinelicious Pics release (Varda
herself supervised the restoration), but these enhancements are most evident with
the former title. The film’s imagery is a layering of textures, colors,
production design, and camera angles. Its patchwork portrait covers diverse
narrative territory as well, from slapstick to historical drama. The string of
fictitious scenes give Varda and Birkin the opportunity to realize a variety of
genres, as a showcase for their complimentary directorial and acting skills. In
an interview on the Jane B. for Agnès V.
disc, Varda says as much, noting the film allowed Birkin to explore different
aspects of her talent (though Varda also says, in the actual film, that the
actress is the “queen of paradox,†with her desire to be a “famous nobodyâ€).
One is inclined to take the various documentary-type situations as
truth, with no reason to assume they are otherwise. But therein lies another
element of this byzantine film: the obfuscation of the line between fiction and
reality. While some sections appear to be candidly caught on the fly, other
sections are created by Varda explicitly egging them on. Deconstructing the
illusion of filmmaking itself, Jane B.
for Agnès V. is a behind-the-scenes reflection and literal depiction of the
creative process. Near the end of the film, Birkin asks, “What now? Where do we
go?†“We agreed the film would wander, we’d set off someplace and stop along
the way,†replies Varda. “What if we lose our way?†questions the actress. “I
like mazes,†says Varda. “I like finding out where I've been at the exit.†This
awareness of the film’s development is followed by about 30 minutes of a
fictional film being made with Birkin, one in which Varda’s son, Mathieu Demy,
plays a part in the proposed story, which we see simultaneously realized before
Jane B. for Agnès V. then veers off down
another path.
This is the initial genesis that shaped Kung-Fu Master! Birkin gets story credit for the second film in
this Blu-ray set, as it was from her suggestions during the making of Jane B. for Agnès V. that Kung-fu Master! was created. Just as the
earlier film dealt with themes such as family, life, loss, and sexuality, so
too is this complementary picture informed by these concerns.
With a cast consisting partially of members from both Varda and
Birkin’s family—to the young Demy as Julien add Birkin’s daughters Charlotte
Gainsbourg, as Lucy, and Lou Doillon, as Lou—Kung-Fu Master! gets off to an upbeat start, with a stuttering
video game introduction to Julien. At a party for Lucy, where she and others of
her age are drinking and smoking and generally acting older and wiser than they
perhaps should, Birkin, as Lucy’s mother, Mary-Jane, first encounters Julien…as
he drunkenly vomits into a toilet. Mary-Jane finds the boy “pathetic†yet
“superb,†and wants to see him again, which she does when she literally runs
into him in her car. To make amends, she treats Julien to a coke and a video
game, the eponymous “Kung-Fu Master.†“Boys are curious and vulnerable,†says
Mary-Jane. “I find it touching.â€
This is the start of a fleeting romance that was taboo enough in
1987 to greatly limit the film’s international release. As the courtship
progresses, Julien shows up with flowers and food for his friend’s mother,
while Mary-Jane picks up the boy’s homework when he is home sick from school,
just so she has an excuse to see him. Before long, they are setting dates for
just the two of them alone, where she tries to connect to his youth by playing
the video game and he tries to match her maturity by slipping his hand under
her shirt. The uneasy physicality of the relationship, to say nothing of the
moral quandary (Mary-Jane justifies it to Lucy by noting she herself was with a
man 15-20 years older when she was her daughter’s age), produces an
overwhelming guilt.