Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 12/52 | Criterion Double Feature — Film 2
Maggie Cheung (as herself) arrives three days past her expected arrival at a chaotic film production in France. They are remaking Les Vampires, a classic French serial from 1915.
The director, René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud), informs her he saw her in The Heroic Trio and knew she had to be in his film. She will portray Irma Vep, the inspiration for a criminal gang called The Vampires, because of her grace.
Zoé (Nathalie Richard) is fighting with René over his choice to have Irma Vep in something akin to a Catwoman costume. She shit-talks the director with Maggie, saying his older movies are better. Maggie defers, saying she came to do the movie. She intended to make the best of it.
After René trash talks the dailies, everyone disperses, except for Zoé, who sees Maggie walking alone. Zoé invites Maggie over, confessing to a friend that she has a crush on Maggie. By the next day, the rumor train is that Zoé and Maggie hooked up.
The chaos continues, and the movie bleeds into reality. Maggie Cheung, decked in her latex costume, becomes the thief. She steals jewelry from an American in her hotel, sneaks to the rooftops, and tosses it off the side of the building.
This film is a meta-textual conversation with French cinema. It discusses where French film is heading. At the heart is the dichotomy of the personal film and the commercial film. It questions if both can exist.
Casting Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played Antoine Doinel in several of Truffaut’s films, is no accident. French New Wave was famous for criticizing French cinema, trying to bring an American sense of energy and play. The act of lamenting cinema is a French act.
Characters compare French films to world cinema. A person interviewing Maggie digresses into a rant about how French film is too insular and personal. He says that they should focus on making more commercial films.
Intentional or not, the film touches on casting racism. René hired Maggie for her “beautiful mystique.” The interviewer wants to talk about John Woo, even though Maggie Cheung is not in any of his movies, let alone familiar with his filmography.
The film ends with a callback to an early French experimental film process, calling for a cultural reset. It offers, however, no answers as to where that direction may be.