Most shows fall into recognizable categories, such as original stories, spin-offs, documentary dramas, or more and more reboots and resurrections.
Next is “IrmaVep”.Olivier Assayas’ new HBO seriesStarring Alicia Vikander, is like a braid in which the past and present are inextricably intertwined. Its origins date back more than a century, but it would be more informative to start our story in 1996, when a movie of the same title was released.
At that time, Asayas turned from a former critic to a filmmaker, with some intimate art house dramas under his belt. “Irma Vep” has given him international praise.
Not because it was a commercial hit. A French writer director said in a video conversation from his office in Paris last month that the film “couldn’t raise box office revenue accurately.” “It didn’t work that well.”
But what “IrmaVep” had in spades was cool.
This was partly due to its meta-subject. Real Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung, who later married Asayas for several years, played his own version of Louis Feuillade’s remake of the French silent film series “Levan Peel” (1915-16). rice field. , About a criminal who loves the disguise named Irma Vep.
And there’s Asayas’ finger socket style, which anxiously created a memorable scene like Chan. Sonic Youth tinkers with black latex catsuits when it rains electricity With the soundtrack.
“I think it’s a movie that many people love, especially because it’s about movies,” said Ravinandan, director of the series’ production company A24, on a phone call from Los Angeles. “So the people inside both Hollywood and independent filmmaking saw it all and loved it.”
“It’s like that Truffaut’s touchstone, like’night of the night’,” he added.
Premiered on HBO on Monday, the series is not a sequel divided into eight episodes. Asayas seeks a literary analogy when trying to explain the nature of the project. “‘Irma Vep’ New “Irma Vep” It’s like moving from poetry to novels to thick novels, “he said. (The show works on its own, but the structure of the matryoshka doll is more rewarding when you watch a movie currently streamed on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel.)
This wasn’t a rehash, which was one of the reasons Vicandel signed on. “He said,’No, no, it’s just a continuation. It’s not over yet, so I want to do it,'” she said in a video chat from London, recalling Asayas’ pitch. .. .. “I could see him having that little fire in him.”
Another reason was their friendship: the pair met when he thought he had to remake his 2016 movie “Personal shopper” That was because the intended lead, Kristen Stewart, had a schedule conflict. In the end, Stewart was able to free himself to make the film, but Asayas and Vicandel were in contact. When the series took shape, the Swedish actress was the first choice for the protagonist of Hollywood star Mira, who went to Paris to shoot a remake of an old silent film series.
“I felt she wasn’t maximizing her potential,” Asayas said of Vicandel. “I found her funny, she’s smart, she’s fast, she has this deep understanding and love for the movie. I felt something might happen with the combination of the two.”
Vicandel “Ex Machina” android Received an Academy Award for historical drama “Denmark girl” (2015), not generally known for its easy-going material. So the comic dimension of “Irma Vep” was part of the charm.
“I wanted to do that,” she said with a happy laugh. “And I think Olivier knew my personal persona because he knew me. He said,” Yeah, you need to put out more of it. ” I think this is just the beginning. “
At the show, humor usually foams with the French cast Antic, and the crew with which Mira works is director Rene Vidal (Vincent), who is already making a film and is nervous and engrossed in the film. Irma Vep (starring a Chinese actress named “Jade Lee” on behalf of Cheung), led by Macane), is back in the series. Interestingly, Macaigne’s speaking rhythm often sounds like Asayas. The director agrees that he partially wrote himself to Rene, but he said it was better.
“I don’t scream at people, you know,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t attack the actor.”
Still, it’s clear that the similarities between art and life are woven into the fabric of the new show. And each iteration of “Irma Vep” results in an increasingly complex ripple of additional self-references. “I’m part of the story of the character Irma Vep, starting with Louis Feuillade in 1916 and traveling to the cinema to this day,” said Asayas.
“I like the idea of combining layers of time in a movie. That’s not something you can do very often,” he continued. “And the relationship with my own work, how it gets old, how it interacts with myself a quarter century away, the events surrounding the film-to be transparent, with Maggie Cheung. Marriage-is also something that echoes very deeply and essentially the events of the series, and how modern films interact with silent films. “
As for Mira, many viewers may think she is Stewart’s agent. She first sees Mira nursing her injured heart after being abandoned by her girlfriend and arriving in Paris wearing her shades and a sloppy beanie. This is similar to an Assay with no both soft pedals and counterarguments.
“It’s a little, but it’s not,” he said. “This was written with Alicia in mind, but I can’t escape the fact that my experience with American movie stars is Kristen Stewart. I don’t know many of them, and she I’m a friend, and I love her, and I respect her. Yes, I need a Kristen element — Kristen is haunting the movie. “
As for Vicandel, there was a limit to her identity with her personality. “Perhaps one of Mira’s things that I can mainly relate to is probably her passionate love for movies,” she said. “But it was fun to play with a character that was quite different from mine.”
But the new “Irma Vep” is more than just a patchwork of a series of true stories or references to other stars and other movies. Under its playful way and some very entertaining side plots-especially crack cocaine needs to be procured for the added actors-Asayas explores what was at the heart of the 1996 movie. Continue to do.
“This series is about the thin line between reality and fantasy, it’s about how we all live in the physical and immaterial worlds at the same time,” he said. “When you’re directing, acting, you’re playing a game that’s dangerous in a way, using your identity. You’re yourself, someone else, as much as you. I’m having a hard time getting the truth out. “
For Mira, the passage between her normal life and false lands is Irma Vep’s catsuit, which is rendered here in silky fabric, close to the serial version, rather than latex. Similar to the fictional Cheung in 1996, the costume connects Mira and Irma. (By now, you’ve noticed that their names are anagrams, which is yet another reference to the source material.)
It’s not surprising to know that the catsuit spell also worked for the stars in the series. “You stand out very much because your body is so tight, but I also feel like a ninja. I just disappear,” Vicandel said. “When I was in this pitch black, I was really absorbed and really enjoyed doing it. It felt like the physics of the parts.
“That was one of the things I was thinking about, but when I first tried on the costume, she continued, snapping her fingers.” She just appeared. “