Art X Encounter ─ Late Night Screenings: Manji & Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut)

Venue: Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Date: 2019.03.30 - 2019.03.31

As the night enshrouds us, light sleeps to dream and souls transpire. Films allow us glimpses into the daily workings and unusual depths of human nature and our world. In this edition of Art X, with “encounter” as the theme, the Hong Kong Arts Centre’s moving image programme screens two foreign classics, Manji and Betty Blue (director’s cut), to dive into the intense maelstrom of love and passion, light and shadows.

Screening Schedule

30/3 (Sat) 9:15pm Manji

30/3 (Sat) 11:15pm Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut)

BOOK NOW

Manji

Director: Yasuzo Masumura
Japan | 1964 | 91' | In Japanese with English subtitles | 35mm | Colour

30/3 (Sat) 9:15pm

Adapted from Japanese literary master Junichiro Tanizaki’s famous novel of the same title with a script written by Japanese film master Shindo Kaneto, Manji refers to the four-pronged Buddhist swastika that symbolises prosperity, and is a metaphor for the four leads of this film.

Sonoko lives with her lawyer husband Kotaro in a state of social respectability and private ennui until she meets Mitsuko while attending a local art school. Spellbound by Mitsuko’s beauty, Sonoko starts a fiery affair with Mitsuko, who is already engaged to Eijiro. As Mitsuko’s beauty bewitches Kotaro, the four get deliriously entangled in a web of desire, exploitation, jealousy and suicide.

Presenter: Hong Kong Arts Centre

Supported by: Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong

The print of Manji is provided by The Japan Foundation.

Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut) *

Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix

30/3 (Sat) 11:15pm

Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Academy Awards, USA, 1987

Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, BAFTA, UK, 1987
Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Golden Globe Awards, USA, 1987
Best Foreign Language Film, Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, USA, 1987

Zorg is an aspiring writer making a living as a handyman in a seaside resort. One day, Betty, a volatile and impulsive woman turns up and the two begin a passionate love affair. While the two spend all their time together, Betty’s state of mind begins to spiral out of control, and she descends into a state of unreachable madness. In growing despair, Zorg tries desperately to hold their love together. Love embraces and destructs at the same time.

Betty Blue, a French erotic psychological classic about addictive and extreme love, desire and contradictory emotional forces, was the eighth highest grossing film in France in its year of release.

*Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut) has been censored and classified as Category III by the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Persons who are under 18 are not permitted.

Co-Presenters: Hong Kong Arts Centre and Alliance Française Hong Kong

#The above sceenings are part of the programme of Hong Kong Arts Centre Open House 2019 – Art X Encounter . Come Join with the Hong Kong Arts Centre on the bi-annual special night program “Art X”, which offers new and unique cross-disciplines art experiences for visitors of all ages with performances, film screenings and special programs. For details, please click here.

Tickets are available at putyourself.in and breakuptours now.

Ticket price:

Tickets package of Manji (includes one ticket of screening of Manji, Snack & Mocktail Bar): $90

Tickets package of Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut) (includes one ticket of screening of Betty Blue and Snack & Mocktail Bar): $114

Tickets package of Manji and Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (Director's Cut) (includes one ticket of screening of Manji and Betty Blue and Snack & Mocktail Bar): $164