A Girl Is a Gun

Like a Hollywood B western directed by a French outsider artist, Luc Moullet’s psychotropic oater stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as Billy the Kid in a wild comic performance that’s equal parts Clint Eastwood and Three Stooges. The fractured-beyond-recognition plot finds the bandit on the run from the law through a rocky desert wasteland with a seductive and possibly duplicitous woman (Rachel Kesterber) in tow. Set to a shivery, avant–cold wave soundtrack (complete with titular theme song), it all climaxes in a delirious Duel in the Sun-meets-acid-freak-out finale. Film restored by La Traverse with the assistance of the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). Restorations carried out by Cosmodigital and L.E. Diapason and distributed in North America by Cinema Guild.