Irma Vep (1997)

This is a movie about making a remake of an actual French silent film called Les Vampires. Maggie Cheung plays, get this, Maggie Cheung. Ms. Cheung has consistently been one of the best actors in film in the last twenty five years. Her versatility is admirable. In this film you get everything involved with the film, the set, the script, the discussions behind the camera, the disappointment after watching the rushes. Its like a reality movie about making a film. It feels like a documentary, which is a quality that is very admirable. Ms. Cheung looks pretty great poured into a black latex outfit for the film. You get everything here. Ms. Cheung speaks English here, and the subtitles on my version of the film are sometimes unintentionally funny (they are so wrong). See this film, it is entertaining and Maggie Cheung is her usual great self. I greatly enjoyed it.

The only moment when I can confidently relate to what is going on in "Irma Vep" is when a character asks why such well made original films need to be remade. The turkey graveyard is littered with examples such as "Stagecoach", "Shadow of a Doubt", "Psycho" and most needlessly of all "Cry, the Beloved Country". Having, admittedly, only sat through half of Olivier Assayas's tedious French offering, I am minded to ask a different question but one that I imagine has the same answer. What is the point of making a film about making a film? The results are generally pretty dull. Even some of the great have come unstuck. Truffaut's "Day for Night", although not entirely without interest, is hardly among his best work, likewise Fellini's "Otto e Mezzo" about a film maker suffering from a creative block. I can only imagine that he had to get uncertainties out of his system that would enable him to go on to such wondrous stuff as "Amarcord". But does this justify such a monumental work of self-indulgence? The genre defeated Bertrand Tavernier whose "Laissez-Passer" has to be counted among French cinema's greatest yawns. But at least I sat it out in the belief that in its attempt to create a period of history so meticulously - French cinema making during the German occupation of Paris - it came into the worthy if dull category. I found no such saving grace in what little I saw of "Irma Vep". I think that, like remakes, such works are the result of their creators' desire to let us know they are still around during times of inspirational sterility. Surely the worthy thing for a director of integrity to do during such periods is to shut up.

"Irma Vep" (an acronym for "vampire") is a critically lauded film about the making of a French movie which seems to be devoid of value and purpose. Probably a failed attempt at satirical commentary on the film biz, this flick has only a wisp of a plot, the look of a documentary, the feel of an indie, and manages to conjure little more than a whole lot of busy-ness. Devoid of everything people go to films to see, "Irma Vep" is a colossal waste of time. Recommended for film critics only. (D+)

This is a French film about French film makers who spend a lot of time B*tching about French film making while remaking a French silent film using a lead actress who doesn't speak French. It could be a slightly better movie but it has several moments where it lapses into Ibsenesk side commentary that doesn't really move the film any. It could have been better and it could have been worse.