Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 16 October

Irma Vep (Assayas, 2022)

Never let it be said that I don’t take requests, even if it takes months.

Reader FE responded to my request for tips back in May and we finally got here last week.

Television (or serial movies or whatever they are now) take a long time in this house. There’s so much else to watch – usually with deadlines and dollars attached – that little time is left for big commitments like this.

I’m glad we forced Irma Vep into the schedule, though, as there is nothing like it, and it is deliciously self-reverential about the film business which always appeals to me.

I tried to explain the plot on RNZ last Friday night and failed but I will try again here.

Back in 1915, French director Louis Feuillade made a thriller serial called Les Vampires, about a criminal gang in Paris with a female figurehead named Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire).

Late in the 20th century, arthouse director Olivier Assayas turned his obsession with Les Vampires (and Irma) into a feature film about an arthouse director turning that obsession with Irma into a remake/reimagining – largely inspired by the silhouette of Irma in a black cat suit on the rooftops of Paris.

The 1996 Assayas version of Irma was Maggie Cheung, playing a version of herself. Assayas and Cheung fell in love, married and then divorced in 2001. Cheung retired from the screen industry in 2013.

The 2022 series version of Irma starts from there. The proxy of Assayas, René Vidal (now played by Vincent Macaigne), is making a streaming series of Les Vampires, partially inspired by (or defined by) his 1996 meta-indie film version. He is emotionally and artistically fragile, but propped up because his new Irma is Hollywood superstar Mira Harberg (Alicia Vikander).

Over the eight episodes, we see Vidal fall apart – including a visit from a vision of Hong Kong superstar Cheung – and Harberg slowly take on the magical properties of the black cat suit.

And everyone appears to play multiple roles, from the ‘behind the scenes’ 2022 Les Vampires, the terrible actual 2022 Les Vampires, flashbacks to the making of the 1915 Les Vampires and we also get scenes from the wild original silent production.

Utterly meta, ingratiating, surprising, satirical and just plain funny, Irma Vep is one of those shows that you hope would get made with all the streaming money sloshing around but don’t expect to actually happen.

First-class honours to an actor I was not aware of before: Lars Eidinger, who plays a crack-addicted bisexual German superstar; Moreno, the smooth criminal antagonist of the 2022 version; and Fernand Herrmann, the original actor who played Moreno in 1915.

Yup, it’s that complicated but also that rewarding.

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Where to watch Irma Vep