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Irma Vep

France 1996
produced by
Georges Benayoun, Grancoise Guglielmi (executive) for Dacia Film, Canal+
directed by Olivier Assayas
starring Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Antoine Basler, Nathalie Boutefeu, Alex Descas, Dominique Faysse, Arsinée Khanjian, Bernard Nissile, Olivier Torres, Bulle Ogier, Lou Castel, Jacques Fieschi, Estelle Larrivaz, Balthazar Clémenti, Lara Cowez, Dominique Cuny, Jessica Doyle, Sandra Faure, Catherine Ferny, Maryel Ferraud, Filip Forgeau, Nicolas Giraudin, Valerie Guy, Lauren Jacquet, Philippe Landoulsi, Smail Mekki, Maurice Najman, Yann Richard, Jérôme Simonin, Alexandra Yonnet, Pierre Amzallag, Francoise Clavel, Francoise Guglielmi, Odile Horion, Francois-Renaud Labarthe, Alain Martin, Guy-Patrick Sainderichin, Willy Martin
written by Olivier Assayas, music by Phillippe Richard

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Washed-out arthouse director René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud) has the ill-adviced idea to remake the classic silent serial Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade) with Hong Kong action superstar Maggie Cheung in the lead as the cat burglar Irma Vep. When Maggie arrives on set, she finds a disorganized crowd trying to get things moving, is dragged to a sexshop by the film's costumer Zoe (Nathalie Richard), where she is put into a latex catsuit, has to realize Vidal hasn't really thought through his project, has problems communicating witht he crew because nobody speaks her language or speaks English nearly as well as her. Plus, it eventually turns out Zoe is madly in love with her, which embarrasses Maggie a little. However, gradually, Maggie gets into her role, to an extent that she, to get into the right mood, breaks into another room in her hotel to steal some (ugly) trinkets.

Then one day, René Vidal disappears, and since nobody on set liked him anyways, they just keep on filming. Only Maggie makes the effort to track him down and pay a visit to him, which wasn't even much of a problem (not even for a Chinese with no command over the French language). But it turns out that René's disappearance (supposed to have been caused by a nervous breakdown) might have only been an elegant exit strategy, and before the day is over, another director (Lou Castel) is hired - who wants Maggie off the film and gives her stuntgirl (Nathalie Boutefeu) the role of Irma Vep, who he insists has to be French.

Not that Maggie has to mind too much about a shortage of roles ...

 

The following is my theory, and I have virtually nothing to back it up, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily wrong - right? Anyways, in a way this film looks as if director Olivier Assayas at one point wanted to remake Les Vampires himself, maybe even with Maggie Cheung in the lead - but other than René Vidal - whom he has very probably not based on himself - in his film, he has come to the conclusion this is not such a good idea just in time, and instead come up with what I would call a "what if"-story, which resulted in this film.

Now on a narrative level, Irma Vep is not terribly impressive, it actually doesn't have much of a story to tell, sometimes loses its narrative focus, and is a bit convoluted - and yet the film works just beautifully, basically despite narrative shortcomings it flows remarkably well, remains entertaining and unpretentious throughout, and doesn't try to be more than it is, a little film about filmmaking. And because it doesn't try, it does succeed to be more than just another little film about filmmaking ...

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

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Robots and rats,
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Tales to Chill
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