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Irma Vep
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by Fox Lorber
Sales Rank: 44261
Price: $9.98
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In the tradition of films about filmmaking, <I>Irma Vep</I> takes its own special place among such films as Fellini's <I>8½</I>. A has-been director decides to remake the silent French serial film <I>Les Vampires</I> starring a Hong Kong action film superstar. The production is falling behind schedule and its star, Maggie Cheung (who plays herself), finds herself an outsider with the film's crew save for a woman costumer (Nathalie Richard) who has a crush on her. Rene the director (Jean-Pierre Leaud) cast Maggie after viewing one of her many martial-arts fantasy films. Although he finds her perfect for the part of the jewel thief in <I>Les Vampires</I>, the rest of the crew cannot see the reasons for casting Maggie beyond her beauty and how she looks in her tight-fitting latex costume. Rene's vision is soon lost on everyone and he suffers a mental breakdown. The film is reassigned to Jose (Lou Castel), a seemingly more commanding director (although he takes the job because his welfare is about to run out), whose first decision is to fire Maggie. <I>Irma Vep</I> is presented as a comedy, but at its heart lies an examination of the art and craft of filmmaking. In a clever turn, Maggie creeps around her hotel getting into character, in essence remaking <I>Irma Vep</I> for real-life director Olivier Assayas. Assayas wrote the film in 10 days and shot the film in a month after meeting Maggie Cheung at a film festival--a fascinating case of life imitating art or is it the other way around? <I>--Shannon Gee</I>
Viewer Reviews
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
Assayas' homage to Contempt gets very interesting about an hour into the film, when we find out that Maggie Cheung (playing herself) is not all she seems. From there, it is riveting. Unfortunately, however, getting to that point may be something of a chore.
The plot: washed-up director Rene Vidal (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is hoping to revitalize his career by remaking Feuillade's classic serial Les Vampires. He casts Cheung, who speaks no French, in the title role, leading to a comedy of errors on the set. Costumer Zoe (Code Inconnu's Nathalie Richard), who is in lust with Cheung, quickly becomes her best friend and staunchest defender on the set, and much is made of the subplot of whether the two will get together. Much of the rest of the tension in the film comes from trying to figure out whether Vidal, who's getting more and more haggard as the shooting drags on, will be able to complete the film without having a breakdown.
The first hour of the film is desperately meta, aping the French New Wave whilst simultaneously paying it homage (and who better here than Jean-Pierre Leaud, who may have been involved in more universally-lauded French films than any other living actor?); all that's missing is Jean-Pierre Melville, but even his infamous and wonderful interview in Breathless is quite nicely aped by Cheung and an antagonist reporter (Antoine Basler). Still, if meta doesn't appeal to you, you're going to have a tough time with it. That said, once it takes off, it really takes off, and the final scenes of the film, when the cast and crew screen what Vidal has put together, are absolute genius. That movie I'd have paid good money to see. ***
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Irma Vep
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