Irma Vep
Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action-movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic silent crime serial Les vampires. What she finds is a behind-the-scenes tangle of barely controlled chaos as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director (a cannily cast Jean-Pierre Léaud) drives himself to the brink to realize his vision. Blending blasts of silent cinema, martial-arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Luna into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Assayas composes in Irma Vep a witty critique of the nineties French film industry and the perennial tension between art and commercial entertainment.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, approved by director Olivier Assayas, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with Assayas
- On the Set of “Irma Vep,” a behind-the-scenes featurette
- Interview from 2003 with Assayas and critic Charles Tesson
- Interview from 2003 with actors Maggie Cheung and Nathalie Richard
- Musidora, the Tenth Muse (2013), a documentary on the actor who originated the role of Irma Vep
- Les vampires: Hypnotic Eyes (1916), the sixth episode in Louis Feuillade’s silent-film serial
- Cinema in the Present Tense, a June 2020 address on the state of cinema by Assayas
- Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung, a 1997 short film by Assayas
- Black-and-white rushes for the film
- English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Aliza Ma
New cover by Jillian Adel
DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, approved by director Olivier Assayas, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with Assayas
- On the Set of “Irma Vep,” a behind-the-scenes featurette
- Interview from 2003 with Assayas and critic Charles Tesson
- Interview from 2003 with actors Maggie Cheung and Nathalie Richard
- Musidora, the Tenth Muse (2013), a documentary on the actor who originated the role of Irma Vep
- Les vampires: Hypnotic Eyes (1916), the sixth episode in Louis Feuillade’s silent-film serial
- Cinema in the Present Tense, a June 2020 address on the state of cinema by Assayas
- Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung, a 1997 short film by Assayas
- Black-and-white rushes for the film
- English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Aliza Ma
New cover by Jillian Adel
Cast
- Maggie Cheung
- Maggie
- Jean-Pierre Léaud
- René Vidal
- Nathalie Richard
- Zoé
- Bulle Ogier
- Mireille
- Lou Castel
- José Murano
- Arsinée Khanjian
- American woman
- Antoine Basler
- Journalist
- Nathalie Boutefeu
- Laure
- Alex Descas
- Desormeaux
- Dominique Faysse
- Maïté
- Bernard Nissile
- Markus
- Olivier Torrès
- Ferdinand/Moreno
Credits
- Director
- Olivier Assayas
- Written by
- Olivier Assayas
- Executive producer
- Françoise Guglielmi
- Producer
- Georges Benayoun
- Cinematographer
- Éric Gautier
- Costumes
- Françoise Clavel
- Jessica Doyle
- Production designer
- François-Renaud Labarthe
- Editor
- Luc Barnier
- Sound
- Philippe Richard
- Sound mixer
- William Flageollet
- Production manager
- Sylvie Barthet
- Film scratcher
- Claude Duty
A scene from Irma Vep
