Irma Vep (1996): A Review

Hong Kong Actress Maggie Cheung in Her First French Film

Sep 2, 2009

Maggie Cheung was best known for action movies when she made this quirky French satire. She plays herself as the star of the remake of a French silent film classic.

Irma Vep is the main character in a silent film serial (1915-1916) called Les Vampires (Irma Vep is an anagram of vampire). In Irma Vep (1996), French New Wave director René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud) attempts to remake Les Vampires, jeopardizing his own film with his artistic tantrums. It’s a satire about French filmmaking, imbued with passion for film, that asks what makes a great movie and what filmmaking is about.

French New Wave Meets Hong Kong Cinema

After watching Heroic Trio (1993), a classic of Hong Kong cinema, Vidal hires one of its stars, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, to star as Irma Vep. “This is why. This is the reason,” Vidal tells Cheung as they watch a clip in which, armed with leather, a cape, and fishnet stockings, she deflects flying stars. “You are mysterious like Irma Vep, you are beautiful like Irma Vep, and also you are magic like her.”

The actress arrives amid the chaos of the film’s production. She doesn’t speak French, so the crew is forced to speak in broken English. Cheung is fitted for a black latex catsuit—the attire of the original Irma Vep—at an S&M store. In short order, the production’s bisexual costumer, Zoé (Nathalie Richard), develops a crush on her.

A Chinese Actress for a French Film Classic

Cheung is thrown not into the confusion not only of the chaotic production, and of learning that Zoé is attracted to her, but of the director’s emotional fragility. Bickering between Vidal and his crew begins after early rushes prove disappointing. There is a continual debate about what makes a good film—the dull intellectual films Vidal is known for or the popular action films of Hong Kong, for example.

Much of Vidal’s descent occurs in his discussions with Cheung. Demonstrating the challenges of transnational film are the accents. In particular, Léaud’s accent is so thick, it’s difficult to understand his English dialogue, which is unfortunate because Vidal’s breakdown, as it parallels the collapse of the production, is important.

Life Imitates Art

When Vidal expresses his frustrations about the film, Cheung gets into her character by skulking about her hotel in the middle of the night dressed in her catsuit. She breaks into a room and, in a scene that reflects the voyeurism of the the camera, eavesdrops on a naked woman fighting over the phone with her lover. She absconds with the woman’s necklace.

In sharp contrast, Cheung is called upon the very next day to do interviews during which a reporter refers to French cinema as navel-gazing, as opposed to the work of “strong directors” like Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and John Woo. The reporter tells her “René Vidal is the past...it’s old cinema...the public doesn’t want his films.”

Meanwhile, the navel-gazers, the producers of Vidal’s film tug with the question, Why a Chinese actress for a French classic? It’s blasphemy, they say. But in the last five minutes, Vidal’s footage of Maggie as Irma Vep, set to a soundtrack that combines metallic screeching and Sonic Youth, shows something altogether original and compelling.

The copyright of the article Irma Vep (1996): A Review in European Films is owned by Jacqueline Ching. Permission to republish Irma Vep (1996): A Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.