View source for Irma Vep

{{Short description|1996 film by Olivier Assayas}}
{{About|the French film|the satirical play by Charles Ludlam|The Mystery of Irma Vep|the miniseries of the same name|Irma Vep (miniseries)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{More citations needed|date=May 2010}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Irma Vep
| image          = irmavep.jpg
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Olivier Assayas]]
| writer         = Olivier Assayas
| producer       = Georges Benayoun
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[Maggie Cheung]]
* [[Jean-Pierre Léaud]]
* [[Nathalie Richard]]
* [[Bulle Ogier]]
* [[Lou Castel]]
* [[Arsinée Khanjian]]
* [[Antoine Basler]]
* [[Nathalie Boutefeu]]
* [[Alex Descas]]
* Dominique Faysse
* Bernard Nissile
* Olivier Torres
}}
| cinematography = [[Éric Gautier]]
| editing        = Luc Barnier
| music          = Philippe Richard
| studio         = Dacia Films
| distributor    = Haut et Court
| released       = {{Film date|df=yes|1996|5|15|[[1996 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes]]|1996|11|13|France}}
| runtime        = 97 minutes
| country        = France
| language       = {{Plainlist|
* English
* French
}}
| budget         = €1.4 million<ref name="jpbox">{{cite web|url=http://www.jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=11242|title=Irma Vep (1996)|website=JP's Box-Office|language=fr}}</ref>
| gross          = $282,310 (US & Canada)<ref name="jpbox"/>
}}

'''''Irma Vep''''' is a 1996 French [[comedy-drama]] film written and directed by [[Olivier Assayas]]. Hong Kong actress [[Maggie Cheung]] plays a fictionalised version of herself, as disasters result when an unstable French film director (played by [[Jean-Pierre Léaud]]) attempts to remake [[Louis Feuillade]]'s classic [[silent film]] serial ''[[Les Vampires]]'' (1915–16); ''Irma Vep'' is an anagram for the word "vampire". Taking place largely through the eyes of a foreigner (Cheung), it is also a meditation on the state of the [[French film industry]].

''Irma Vep'' was screened in the [[Un Certain Regard]] section at the [[1996 Cannes Film Festival]].<ref name="festival-cannes.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4715/year/1996.html |title=Festival de Cannes: Irma Vep |work=Festival de Cannes |access-date=September 20, 2009|publisher=[[Cannes Film Festival]]}}</ref> It was released in France on 13 November 1996.

In 2022, the film was reimagined as [[Irma Vep (miniseries)|a miniseries for HBO]], created by Assayas.

== Plot ==
The plot mirrors the [[disorientation]] felt by director René Vidal during a troubled production of a [[Story within a story|film-within-a-film]]. [[Maggie Cheung]] has been cast to play the film's [[hero]]ine, Irma Vep, a burglar and a spy, who dresses in a tight, black, [[latex]] rubber [[catsuit]]. Irma Vep, it is explained, is an [[anagram]] for ''[[vampire]]'', but she is not a literal vampire. Rather, she is the inspiration for a criminal gang named The Vampires, as in [[Les Vampires|Feuillade's original serial]].

René, the cast and crew view the film's [[dailies]] and he angrily declares the footage terrible and soulless. After he storms out, everyone else quickly departs the facility, leaving Maggie stranded. She accepts an invitation from the costume designer, Zoé, to a group dinner with other crew members. There, Zoé confides to another woman that she is romantically interested in Maggie, which the woman then tells Maggie, embarrassing her.

After the dinner with the other crew members, Maggie visits René at a hotel in the aftermath of a violent episode with his wife. René admits that he had mainly wanted to make the film because he desired to see her in it. Later that evening, Maggie, apparently possessed by her character, dons the catsuit and steals jewelry from a hotel suite while a nude woman argues on the phone with her boyfriend. She then throws away the jewelry.

The next morning, Zoé picks an exhausted Maggie up from her hotel room. René is a no-show on the set, and the crew attempt to film without him. At the end of the day, imperious film director José Mirano meets Maggie's costar Laure at a bar and tells her René has had a breakdown and that he has been hired to complete the film. He firmly contends that a Chinese actress should not be playing Irma Vep, who he sees as an icon within French culture. José tells her he intends to replace Maggie with Laure.

Zoé and Maggie take a taxi to a [[rave]], but Maggie declines to go at the last minute and departs in the taxi. Zoé, looking disappointed, walks through the crowd at the rave.

José and the cast and crew gather at the screening facility to view the rushes that René has personally edited. Maggie is not there, however, and it is said that she has left for America to work on a film with [[Ridley Scott]]. The film ends with the rushes, which have been cut into a hallucinatory montage with numerous scratches and other modifications being done to the film itself. The future of the production is not revealed.

==Cast==
{{Cast listing|
* [[Maggie Cheung]] as herself
* [[Jean-Pierre Léaud]] as René Vidal (director)
* [[Nathalie Richard]] as Zoé (costumer)
* [[Antoine Basler]] as journalist
* [[Nathalie Boutefeu]] as Laure
* [[Alex Descas]] as Desormeaux
* Dominique Faysse as Maïté
* [[Arsinée Khanjian]] as American woman
* Bernard Nissile as Markus
* Olivier Torres as Ferdinand / Moreno
* [[Bulle Ogier]] as Mireille
* [[Lou Castel]] as José Mirano (replacement director)
* [[Jacques Fieschi]] as Roland
* Jessica Doyle as Jessica, Roland's friend
* Balthazar Clémenti as Robert, assistant
}}

==Allusions to French film history==
The film refers to iconic figures in French film history: [[Louis Feuillade]], [[Musidora]], [[Arletty]], [[François Truffaut]], the Groupe [[Chris Marker#SLON and ISKRA (1967–1974)|SLON]], [[Alain Delon]], and [[Catherine Deneuve]]. Thematically, the film questions the place of French cinema at the time. According to Chris Darke, it is not a "mourning for cinema with the romantic nostalgia" but "more like the Mexican [[Day of the Dead]]: remembrance as an act of celebration".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Darke |first=Chris |title=Irma Vep |magazine=[[Sight & Sound]] |volume=7 |issue=3 |date=March 1997 |page=52 |issn=0037-4806}}</ref> Furthermore, Dale Hudson of ''[[Screen (journal)|Screen]]'' wrote, "It is less a film about re-presenting the past, than it is a film about addressing the present, specifically the place of France within the global economy."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hudson |first=Dale |editor-last=Street |editor-first=Sarah |url=https://archive.org/details/Screen_Volume_47_Issue_2/page/n93/mode/2up |title='Just play yourself, "Maggie Cheung"': ''Irma Vep'', rethinking transnational stardom and unthinking national cinemas |journal=[[Screen (journal)|Screen]] |volume=47 |issue=2 |year=2006 |page=232 |doi=10.1093/screen/hjl017 |issn=0036-9543}}</ref>

== Production ==
The idea for the film was born out of an attempted collaboration among Assayas, [[Claire Denis]], and [[Atom Egoyan]], who wanted to experiment with the situation of a foreigner in Paris.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} In the 1915 original serial, written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Irma Vep was played by French [[silent film]] actress [[Musidora]] (1889–1957). Much of the film depicts set-related incidents that echo scenes in [[François Truffaut|Truffaut]]'s 1973 film ''[[Day for Night (film)|Day for Night]]'', to which ''Irma Vep'' owes a large thematic debt.

However, Assayas publicly stated that although he considers ''[[La nuit americaine]]'' a great film, it is more about the fantasy of filmmaking than the reality.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} Assayas credits as a greater inspiration [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]'s ''[[Beware of a Holy Whore]]'', in which [[Lou Castel]], who plays the replacement director José Mirano in this film, plays a film director.

Assayas wrote the script in ten weeks, and the film was shot in a month, with no retakes. "Its hasty production circumstances seem perilously close to the ones that cause everyone such grief in the film."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hagopian |first=Kevin |title=Film Notes – Irma Vep |url=https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fnf98n3.html |access-date=2022-06-06 |publisher=[[New York State Writers Institute]]}}</ref>

Assayas married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001. They again collaborated in 2004 on the film ''[[Clean (2004 film)|Clean]]''.

==Reception==
''Irma Vep'' received a positive critical response. On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds a rating of 94% based on 47 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Starring a bewitching Maggie Cheung, ''Irma Vep'' is an evocative and reflexive satire of the filmmaking process that is bursting at the seams with an affection for cinema."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/irma_vep|title=Irma Vep (1996)|website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]}}</ref> On [[Metacritic]], it has a score of 80 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".<ref>{{cite web |title=Irma Vep |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/irma-vep |website=[[Metacritic]] |access-date=2022-06-03}}</ref>

==References in other media==
Lettrist footage from the film, along with shots from the original ''Les Vampires'', are used in [[White Ring (band)|White Ring]]'s video for their single "IxC999".

A character in the five-comic series "Anno Dracula – 1895: Seven Days in Mayhem" by [[Kim Newman]] and Paul McCaffrey is based on Irma Vep.

==Home media==
''Irma Vep'' was released on Blu-ray and DVD through [[The Criterion Collection]] on 27 April 2021.<ref name="Irma Vep">{{cite web |url=https://www.criterion.com/films/29197-irma-vep |title=Irma Vep: Olivier Assayas |publisher=[[The Criterion Collection]] |access-date=17 January 2021}}</ref>

==Television adaptation==
{{main|Irma Vep (miniseries)}}

[[HBO]] produced a limited television series adaptation of the film that premiered at the [[2022 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]] on 22 May 2022, and was released on 6 June 2022 on HBO. It stars [[Alicia Vikander]], [[Vincent Macaigne]], [[Adria Arjona]], [[Byron Bowers]], Devon Ross, [[Carrie Brownstein]], [[Tom Sturridge]] and [[Fala Chen]] and was written and directed by Assayas.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alicia Vikander To Star In TV Adaptation Of Olivier Assayas' Feature Film 'Irma Vep' For HBO|url=https://deadline.com/2020/12/alicia-vikander-olivier-assayas-feature-film-irma-vep-hbo-1234656032/|website=[[Deadline Hollywood]]|first=Peter|last=White|date=14 December 2020|access-date=21 July 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title='Irma Vep': Adria Arjona, Carrie Brownstein, Jerrod Carmichael Among 5 Cast In TV Adaptation Of Olivier Assayas' Feature Film For HBO|url=https://deadline.com/2021/07/irma-vep-adria-arjona-carrie-brownstein-jerrod-carmichael-fala-chen-alicia-vikander-tv-adaptation-olivier-assayas-feature-film-for-hbo-1234795869/|website=Deadline Hollywood|first=Denise|last=Petski|date=19 July 2021|access-date=21 July 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title='Irma Vep': Byron Bowers & Tom Sturridge Join HBO's TV Adaptation Of Olivier Assayas' Feature Film|url=https://deadline.com/2021/08/irma-vep-byron-bowers-tom-sturridge-recasting-hbo-tv-adaptation-olivier-assayas-feature-film-1234809960/|website=Deadline Hollywood|first=Denise|last=Petski|date=5 August 2021|access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Fienberg |first=Daniel |date=2022-05-22 |title=Alicia Vikander in HBO's 'Irma Vep': TV Review {{!}} Cannes 2022 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/irma-vep-tv-review-1235151952/ |access-date=2022-06-03 |work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]}}</ref>

==See also==
* ''[[The Mystery of Irma Vep]]'', a 1984 play for two characters by [[Charles Ludlam]]
* [[Lettrism]], inspiration for some sequences of the film

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|0116650}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=443334}}
* {{Mojo title|irmavep}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|irma_vep}}
* [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7369-irma-vep-film-in-flux ''Irma Vep: Film in Flux''] – an essay by Aliza Ma at [[The Criterion Collection]]

{{Olivier Assayas}}

[[Category:1996 films]]
[[Category:1996 comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:1996 independent films]]
[[Category:1990s English-language films]]
[[Category:1990s French-language films]]
[[Category:1996 multilingual films]]
[[Category:English-language French films]]
[[Category:Films about filmmaking]]
[[Category:Films adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:Films directed by Olivier Assayas]]
[[Category:French independent films]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Olivier Assayas]]
[[Category:French comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:French multilingual films]]
[[Category:1990s French films]]
[[Category:English-language comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:English-language independent films]]