Irma Vep
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Irma Vep |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | English , French |
| Publishing year | 1996 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Olivier Assayas |
| script | Olivier Assayas |
| production | Georges Benayoun |
| camera | Eric Gautier |
| cut | Luc Barnier |
| occupation | |
| |
Irma Vep is a French feature film directed by Olivier Assayas in 1996.
action
The film director René Vidal wants to make a remake of the silent film The Vampires by Louis Feuillade . The leading role Irma Vep in the 1915 film was played by the French actress Musidora . Now Vidal is looking for a suitable actress for this part and finds her in the Chinese actress Maggie Cheung. Maggie travels to Paris to take on the role. However, she does not speak French and requires all staff to speak English to her. A first meeting with the costume designer Zoé takes place. She is supposed to wear a skin-tight latex costume and learns from Zoé that Vidal's career as a film director is on the decline. Maggie is no longer concerned. The first recordings are made, but Vidal is dissatisfied and leaves his workplace after first viewing the material.
The shooting continues to be chaotic and is characterized by intrigues within the film team. Vidal is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, Maggie finds the director sympathetic and defends him against a French journalist who is particularly into films by John Woo and Arnold Schwarzenegger and who finds French auteur cinema boring. When the costume designer Zoé takes her to meet friends on her motorcycle after a disastrous day of filming, Maggie learns from these friends that Zoé has an eye on her. Maggie is horrified and returns to her hotel alone. There she receives numerous messages from Vidal. Maggie calls him and he asks her to come to his house. When she gets there, she finds him under the influence of strong sedatives after an argument with his wife.
That night, Maggie returns to her hotel and puts on her costume. Similar to her role character, she breaks into a hotel room, steals jewelry and flees over the roofs of the hotel, but throws the jewelry away. The next morning she overslept and is woken up by Zoé, who has come to check if everything is okay with Maggie. Once again there is chaos at the location. Vidal did not appear on the set. Eventually the crew learns that Vidal has had a nervous breakdown and that director José Mirano is supposed to take over his work. However, Mirano doesn't understand why Vidal cast a Chinese actress of all people who doesn't even speak French. He only wants to direct if Maggie is replaced by a French actress. Maggie is released and flies to New York to there Ridley Scott to take.
background
The film was first shown at the 1996 Cannes International Film Festival . There the film ran in the side series Un Certain Regard . It then ran at a few other film festivals and hit French cinemas in November 1996. The film was not shown in German cinemas until 1998.
Reviews
“Olivier Assaya's film is a personal inventory of filmmaking in France. With an almost documentary look that does not gloss over him, sometimes in an ironic, rarely also in a sarcastic tone, he shows the everyday wickedness and the abyss between the common glorification and reality of film production. "
Awards
Web links
- Irma Vep in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Irma Vep. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 21, 2018 .