When it was announced that HBO and A24 was working with Olivier Assayas on a series of his meta-remake Irma Vep, my skepticism ran high. Back in college a friend sat me down to watch his original, saying it was the most amazing thing he has seen. Afterword, I remained mostly mum. The film, despite having some interesting ideas, left me cold. A segment of critics still love this movie for its commentary on art and commerce in the film industry. Although I do concede that, couldn’t it be filled with more defined characters?
After about twenty-five years later, it would seem that the director is remaking his remake. What sounds like a celluloid ouroboros is made surprisingly whole, primarily from its length. Instead of a crammed ninety-nine minutes, eight episodes allow Assayas to make subplots and character arcs more substantial.
Alicia Vikander plays Mira, disillusioned by superhero movies and sci-fi action, takes a role in a remake of the 1916 silent cinema classic Les Vampires in Paris. With that, she has signed to the most chaotic film set since Warner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. Admiration for her director Rene Vidal is simultaneously shattered and reformed as the production progresses. Her co-stars range from eager sycophants and large egos, one that tries to sabotage the project at every turn. In the beginning episode one of them tries to add a sex scene for him and an actress who used to be a former lover. Much to the actress and Rene’s chagrin, he is rightly rebuffed. This is a harbinger to the crazy we will find. The director’s own mental state and anxiety, a former lover of Mira and an unstable German costar all threaten. That latter character is played with wonderful pretension and flamboyance by Lars Eidinger, a role that I never thought he would represent from his past work with Assayas in Personal Shopper. In fact, a number of past collaborators appear here, some that even play variations on characters they played in 1997’s Irma Vep. Alex Descas plays the producer here, with more gravitas than pervious. In the original he was an angry mess trying to hold everything together. But the years has wizened this iteration.
World-wary wisdom permeates this miniseries. It helps to knew the director’s own history, as the 1997 version starred Hong Kong superstar Maggie Cheung as herself. Assayas’s marriage to her ended sadly in 2001 and it is clear he is still working towards closure. In the later part of the series, his filmic insert Rene pines for a former wife who is Asian and played Irma Vep originally.
A brilliant sequence where Mira and her interact, bantering about past and future of cinema and the point of acting in culture. Transience has wormed its way into this director’s output. From the time jumps and nefarious globetrotting in Carlos, to a seemingly major character who disappears in the final act of Clouds of Sils Maria, little wonder is made that Mira’s assistant here is reading a book subtitled The Time-Image. A sense of magical realist fantasy that weaves through this director’s later work is also on display.
That aforementioned act in Sils Maria and the appearance of ghosts in Personal Shopper informs the latter part of Irma Vep. In the 1997 version Maggie Cheung loses herself into the character to the point that she scales buildings and sneaks into hotel rooms to steal like Vep. But whereas the original had to use practical logistics, the advent of visual effects add a suspect nature to these scenes. When Mira starts to move through walls to get into spaces she wouldn’t otherwise, a beautiful mystery hangs. Is this real or in the head of our protagonist? The final images of this series, which I won’t divulge, points in a clear direction. Assayas has made a miniseries about characters who lost their love of film but have found it by the end. And so have I.
