FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Olivier Assayas - Irma Vep 

Olivier Assayas has always tried not to belong to a fixed style. He has always changed, and yet I am tempted to consider Irma Vep as his magnum opus. And most of all, I like to give it a direction as well, because that's what we video librarians love! He follows the lead here of Wong Kar Wai's early films, and he in turn loves the lead of the Nouvelle Vague. Irma Vep must have been made in a creative frenzy, improvised and striving to focus on the medium of FILM itself. Just as the authors of the Nouvelle Vague liked to do. The setting is a hectic shoot in Paris. The formerly legendary Rene Vida (the original Jean-Pierre Leaud as a greeting from the 60s), now a bit confused, is directing a remake of Louis Feuillade's series Les Vampires (for those who don't know them; it's a series from the early days of cinema in 1915, in our rental store as DVD4690, DVD4696 and DVD4697). Immediately we notice that Vidal's production is just about to implode. Flown in specially; Maggie Cheung (borrowed from the films of Wong Kar Wai) as an international star who doesn't quite know what to do with the role of Irma Vep. "You must respect the silence"; is Vidal's directorial instruction. Then he takes a sip from a giant Coke bottle. Assayas, for his part, may be considered a scholar of cinema. A cinephile par excellence. For us, that means; we may look for references. Not only Jean-Pierre Leaud as a star of the Nouvelle Vague, but also Lou Castel, a Fassbinder actor from Beware Of The Holy Whore (with us on DVD1364 with English subtitles). Oh yes, and the score features a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Bonnie & Clyde." When Irma Vep hit theaters, in 1996, it felt like movies were under some kind of postmodern compulsion. It HAD to be quoted! That's why a manifesto from the heyday of the Nouvelle Vague is casually inserted: "Cinema is not magic. It's a technique and a science." But it will always survive, because there are enthusiasts like Assayas in every generation who give themselves completely to their passion and create such small, cheap films as Irma Vep. Like back in the nouvelle vague.