French director Jean-Pierre Léaud decides to remake Feuillade's silent serial LES VAMPIRES as a modern feature. He decides to cast Maggie Cheung as Irma Vep based on seeing her in one movie in Marrakesh. When the movie opens, Miss Cheung has just arrived at Léaud's office in the last throes of pre-production, whence she is whisked away to a sex shop to buy a gimp suit to be modified for her costume. After that, things become chaotic, with spoiled takes, spoiled tempers and journalists who lecture her on how to make films.
Miss Cheung is wonderful in the role, a sweet-faced, slightly puzzled woman stranded alone in Paris, trying to perform her part in her first international production, while chaos swirls about her.
There is a lovely, impromptu feel about Olivier Assayas' movie. It feels as if he started out trying to do the remake, and as that became impossible, switched to a different film. That seems unlikely. Undoubtedly that was the look and feel he was trying for. The result is an amusing, slightly tentative effort that makes me wish to look at LES VAMPIRES again.
