An interesting commentary on French film culture as it existed in the 90s and using Cheung, an obvious outsider, as the movie's central figure allows that commentary to be accessible to everybody.

Saw it for the cast and the premise. It was tedious and wasn't what I expected. Saw on TCM.

Irma Vep is clearly the most un-Assayas-like film that director Olivier Assayas has ever made. Known for slow, pensive, meticulously crafted films, he lets loose with Irma Vep, a wild, erratic and wildly entertaining slagging of French film culture. Like Truffaut's Day for Night, it is essentially a film within a film. Maggie Cheung, playing herself, travels to Paris to join the production of the remake of prolific French filmmaker Louis Feuillade's silent film Les Vampires. From the get go, things begin to spiral out of control as egos clash and incompetence rules the day. Jerky handheld cameras give a sense of mayhem throughout. The performances are great, especially by Jean-Pierre Leaud as the demanding and unstable director. While the ending may leave some viewers cold and others may object to its helter skelter style, Irma Vep is worth watching for anyone interested in the process of movie making.

Breathtakingly awesome (there is no other word for it), Olivier Assayas imbues his love for cinema into a compelling 99 minute film with fantastic stars, pace, and dialogue.

Robert Altman Nashville style "slice of life" with the camera following people having "real" conversations. No real plot or story emerges from all these interactions. I suppose it is entertaining at times, but I could never catch gears with it and really know what was going on. It is satirizing something which I definitely don't know much about, so if you aren't a French film buff or know much about French culture surrounding films this is not going to be your bag.

Maggie Chung plunges headlong into the fractious world of French cinema, all at once reverential, disillusioned, pretentious, ambition and pathetic. It's the mid-90's and the ideas have run out, the money's tight and it's time for a remake. Irma Vep, silent and surreal, almost unfilmable. The cast bounce off each other as the frustration of another futile homage hits the skids while Chung becomes the character and sails above the tension. Then the rushes, it's great.

An interesting commentary on French film culture as it existed in the 90s and using Cheung, an obvious outsider, as the movie's central figure allows that commentary to be accessible to everybody.

Wow this is so chaotic, but very interesting and refreshing to watch. The way the camerawork is handheld and loose gives the illusion that you're there as an observer taking part in all of the chaos. This is a fantastic look into what could go behind the scenes of a movie. The only thing is that this seems so unorganized and unprofessional, you can tell it's a low budget film. The way they treat Maggie throughout the whole shoot was unprofessional. Wow, that whole sequence of her sneaking around the hotel felt so dreamlike. The way she snuck into that ladies room and she was butt ass naked and stole her jewel necklace. Especially when she got to the roof and it was raining outside. That looked beautiful. The way the final cut of the film was edited was so weird. You can tell Rene had totally lost his marbles by the end. This movies a really interesting character study with some very candid acting. Everything feels extremely fluid and genuine. I love the style and vibe of this film, it's definitely made by a French director and someone who has an undying passion for cinema. I can easily say that I've never seen a movie like this and I'd be interested in watching it again.

I really enjoyed this film, it was a lot of fun.

A dull satire of french art movies. An interesting concept that ended up being a mess of painful-to-watch scenes full of nonsense.

Those that saw Olivier Assayas latest film (last year's The Clouds of Sils Maria), will notice plenty of thematic similarities in this earlier work. Also a surreal look at the film industry, Irma Vep takes the well-worn concept of dropping a foreigner into Paris (did Henry Miller start this trope with Tropic of Cancer?), and letting their alienation examine the city's importance, problems, and singularity. A meta-film that displays film production and film making, Irma Vep was meant to comment on the issues that plagued French films during the 90s, but much of its subject matter is still topical today, and its references to its country's previous filmmakers makes it an ideal film to screen for any French Cinema course. Assuredly directed, and provocative in its ambiguities, Irma Vep is a highlight for 90s French cinema.

Nobody did an exceptional job, but the pace and narration are so natural that it really caught me. Olivier Assauas is a hard-core cinephile. Another film that seamlessly interconnects the real world with the world of cinema--probably the ultimate dream of every filmmaker. Maggie Maggie, how can you be this amazing? 20151026 @ Anthology.

Irma Vep isn't nearly as probing as it thinks it is, content to make its simplistic criticism of french cinema plain instead of opting for subtlety. Its rushed production is obvious as well; the whole thing feels remarkably slapdash, relying on the charm of Maggie Cheung to enliven the lackluster material driving the project. This kind of thing isn't remotely new (François Truffaut's Day for Night touches on the same exact themes with more success, infusing genuine heart into its backstage antics as opposed to Irma Vep's adherence to an intentionally awkward, cold level of detachment) and this fact renders Assayas's film moderately redundant, a mildly amusing bit of navel-gazing that could've been more had more care gone into its construction.

gr8 movie within a movie reminds me of truffaut's 'day for night'

This is a movie that one will either love or hate. I doubt that there are few people who will view it and find it to be "ok" -- it demands a reaction. Filmed in 1996, Olivier Assayas' thoughtful cinematic essay on 'the art of French Film' is so cool it almost burns. From the music on the soundtrack (Sonic Youth / Luna / Ry Cooder) , the slickly planned "verite-ish" camera work and the kink costume - this movie is totally late 1990's chic cool. But there is much more going on here that being cool. Assayas is exploring the past, current and future state of French Cinema. The "plot" of the film is an older and emotionally fragile filmmaker attempting to remake the historic and cinematically-relavent Louis Feuillade and his iconic silent film serial, LES VAMPIRES. ...A work that you will recognize upon site even if you've not seen any of it. Feuillade's films were both very French and yet universally appealing. LES VAMPIRES was not afraid of being entertaining for the sake of entertainment but it was also stylized and oddly erotic. And, Feuillade's work remains interestingly current in both look and plot. Assayas film captures a confused and chaotic film crew attempting to both please their director and push against him. The characters, including a particularly annoying 온라인카지노추천 Journalist, hold the production in contempt for several reasons: it is not commercial enough to make money, it is being made for the French Intelligentsia and more than a few feel it odd that the director has chosen an Asian actress (played with natural brilliance and beauty by Maggie Cheung) in an Iconic Role of French Cinema. As another filmmaker notes, why cast a Chinese woman to play a character who was created to represent The French Lower Class? The film gives its final punch when we, along with the cast, see the small amount of edited footage created by the fictional director. The small bit of footage is inspiring, artistic, disturbing and something all together new -- and, yes, cool. If you love Cinema, and you have a particular fondness for French Nouvelle Vague -- you will love Olivier Assayas slick and totally cool meditation of the state of French Cinema.

Shades of the later Tristram Shandy and earlier Truffaut films, we have the story of a film within a film and all the drama that occurs outside of where the camera is shooting. While good at times, it often feels lost.

Fans of silent films, old French films and film production seen to enjoy it. I couldn't resist because it has Cheung in a catsuit. Maggie's great, especially when she's "slinking around the corridors of her hotel in her sheath of shiny black latex to the dissonant chords of Sonic Youth". The entire movie seems like a bland "making of" documentary. Good experimental short at the end, but mostly it's a mid-90's "behind the scenes" of a film where the director loses his mind and the lead is recast.

Directed by Olivier Assayas, (Cold Water (1994), Boarding Gate (2007) and Summer Hours (2008)), this is a very offbeat comedy-drama which takes a candid look at filmmaking and turns it on it's head more than once or twice. It was meant as a comment on French cinema in the mid-1990's, and what was going on, but it owes a debt of gratitude to François Truffaut's Day For Night (1973), which Assayas cites as heavy inspiration. It has Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung (playing herself) coming to France to act in a remake of Les Vampires (1915), being reimagined by director René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud). Cheung will be playing the part of Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire), who spends most of the film remake dressed in a tight, black, latex rubber catsuit. However, as time goes on, Cheung finds herself becoming Irma Vep, and finds herself going out acreoss the rooftops of Paris in the catsuit, meanwhile the film's costume designer Zoe (Nathalie Richard) and director Vidal develop love crushes on Cheung as Irma Vep. It's a very original way of doing a film within a film, and the film switches back and forth between French and English at the flick of a switch, and it has some weird montages too, but it's a look about the nightmares directors face when making films and the horror at having to compromise. Assayas does good with the material and it's a good way of doing a remake, show it from another perspective, pull and and show it being made.

some want this movie to fail. some think this is the best under the radar indie film... i'm not sure where i stand. i do think they pull of some things rather well. i think it addresses in a good way -- certain trends in cinema that tend to admire asian movies out of novelty rather than on the strength of their own merits. and... you know, it's kinda neato... the edits, the aimlessness, but on another day, it could all be quite annoying. i think maggie cheung was definitely the right lady for the role though...

A.V. Club, I see where you're coming from but I'm not quite up there yet. http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-50-best-films-of-the-90s-2-of-3,86361/