Irma Vep

This is a very solid film, make no mistake, but it tends to play more like a testing ground for various elements of Olivier Assayas' overall style, particularly those which he would later explore more fully in his later masterpiece "Demonlover", than any sort of cohesive narrative statement. It's not very often that a film strikes me as not having enough of a plot, but in the case of this there did seem to be a certain irrelevance to it all. There's nothing really new about the "making a movie" movie, and this doesn't add much to the mix, although i do think it is well done for what it is, and occasionally even approaches a sort of proto-"Lost in Translation", with Paris standing in for Tokyo and Maggie Cheung's Asian "otherness" replacing Bill Murray's fish-out-of-water Americanness. But the film is never really focused enough to compare in any significant way to that film. "Irma Vep" really only comes alive when Assayas gets away from his nagging tendency towards a certain French talkiness and indulges in the moments of pure visual cinema that make up the other half of his general approach (and which seem to be invested with much more enthusiasm here) , such as the scene scored to Sonic Youth's "Tunic" (another foreshadowing of "Demonlover"). Certainly he does have a way with capturing pretty little images of neon lights reflecting through car windows and things like that, enough that I can acknowledge he is definitely a talented filmmaker, but within this film he never quite finds the correct way to integrate his little artistic flourishes into the whole, and overall the film feels more like a collection of separate ideas than a cohesive statement of any kind.

Pretty much average. Except for Maggie. The movie tries to tell us of the pretensions that the French movies have but falls its self prey to the illness that the script attributes to French cinema: boringness and a desire to intellectualism. I don't think the movie really achieves in making its point. If anything, it doesn't have the wide appeal that it says French movies should have. On the other hand, the movie isn't all that bad. In fact, Maggie looks absolutely fabulous, having a natural look that she doesn't have in HK movies, and she seems to revel in the very realistic banter that goes on between her costume designer and herself.

Did I mention that Maggie looks fabulous?

Unlike Scoopy, I say this movie is WELL worth the effort and time, especially if you're familiar with the French New Wave. Jean-Pierre Leaud, one of the biggest stars of the period (he was the little boy in Francois Truffaut's seminal "The 400 Blows" [no pun intended]) is hilarious as a caricature of Godard in particular and French filmmakers in general, and the rooftop interview with (the stunning) Maggie Cheung refers to both Godard's "Breathless" and, indirectly, Fellini's "8 1/2." Though it pokes good fun at the pretentiousness of the French New Wave, "Irma Vep" is also a tender elegy to a time in which movies were actually viewed as art, as something that really MATTERED. Add to the humor and intelligence some really witty direction, superstylish cinematography, and a slew of beautiful people, and you got yerself a postmodern masterpiece and just maybe one last, great film of the New Wave.

Irma Vep is a film about film-making, an insightful and disturbing film which delivers some beautiful voyeuristic glimpses of vampirism, realist cinema, gritty black-and-white cine-retro and the old men who were once the chic of the French avant-garde film clique.

IMDb says: "Rene Vidal, a director in decline, decides to remake Louis Feuillade's silent serial Les Vampires" but this summary does not mention the real star of the film - Hong Kong kung-fu actress Maggie Cheung, playing herself. She is perfect as the exotic object, the ephemeral other, the object of desire who finds herself at the centre of the film's obsessive and sexually driven visual vortex.

In the privacy of her hotel room, Maggie Cheung zips herself into a full-body black latex catsuit which is going to be her vampire costume on the film set the next day. Maybe she is just getting into character, or maybe she shares something of the director's fascination with nocturnal life... predatory sexuality... visual fixation... the bound female form... anyway, the film really comes to life as she creeps through the hotel, her haunting feline eyes piercing through the spooky-sexy costume... the suspense here is that she is enacting her own vampire fantasy, of her own accord, not under the director's gaze. Maggie Cheung, all alone, on the roof, in the rain, exploring her own version of a male fantasy sequence. This is an unforgettable moment in art-house cinema.

The film really does justice to its themes, with the male characters degenerating from visionaries into voyeurs, and the female characters showing real depth in their willingness to accommodate the male gaze without losing their savvy post-fem powers. If you are a predictable guy like me, you will love the French-Asian grrrl power, which gives the film a pulse.

The theme of visual obsession is presented very well: the director is shouting, the cameras are rolling, and Maggie Cheung, in her catsuit, is ready to suck blood. In these moments she is bound but free, powerless but in control, objectified but liberated. I suppose this makes the film contentious and provocative, but I thought the message was very clear.

Without spoiling the end of the film: the last five minutes of Irma Vep is totally unique. You will never see another film which ends like this one. I can only describe it as a profoundly futile gesture, an act of great passion and impotence, and a brilliant moment in Lettrist art. It is Rene Vidal's last stand, a terrible but beautiful moment caught on celluloid: the work of a madman? a savant? a genius? you can decide, but I am sure you will agree that Irma Vep does a lot more than just scratch the surface of modern film art.

If you like Irma Vep, check out Shadow Of The Vampire as well.

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.