Irma Vep
France 1996, Olivier Assayas, 99′
Olivier Assayas’ “Summer Hours” are supposed to be rather good. I am also pretty sure I have seen a few of his short films (like for “Chacun son cinéma”), but that is it. More than anything else, “Irma Vep” is a meta film. It features Maggie Cheung wonderfully playing her confused self and everybody else, even Jean-Paul Léard, seems to be playing themselves.
At first, I didn’t even realize that this was a meta film, and was waiting for more overt jokes. Little did I know that it was all about cultural misunderstandings and the French film industry, which is rather satirical in itself, especially when looking at how badly organized Maggie’s “welcoming committee” was or how the costume designer got her costume fitted in a sex shop.
More than anything else, “Irma Vep” actually also made me want to watch “Les Vampires”. It’s probably a rather pointless vampire series, but somehow I am intrigued by the character of Irma Vep myself. I think Maggie Cheung would have made a wonderful Irma, and it’s quite lovely how the whole world falls in love with her even though she did nothing. There was some sort of understanding and chemistry between her and Léaud’s character though, and I liked how she defended his artistic cinema in front of this “I like Vin Diesel” journalist – so beautiful and subtly funny! Even more amusing are perhaps the episodes with the desperate lesbian and her mother, where misunderstandings clash the most.
“Irma Vep” wins the award for the perhaps weirdest and unexpected movie I have ever seen, its characteristic flowing somewhere between documentary and satire are very difficult to pinpoint. Even the anticlimactic end seemed wonderful yet surprising to me, and I find this movie impossible to recommend unless you are a connoisseur of both French movies and, uh, Chinese mannerisms.
The Night of the Hunter
USA 1955, Charles Laughton, 89′
Oh my God, Lilian Gish looks so different from how I expected her! In “Intolerance”, she was mostly a symbol and you could barely see her face, and here she is this strong old lady who incorporates justice and goodness. While I loved her character and how she contributes to the story’s rather peaceful end, she also kind of feels like an intruding item that makes the film somewhat less expressionist.
The expressionism – Robert Mitchum’s cruel and scary looks, atmospheric shots of the night, a hunt filled with terror – is perhaps what makes this movie so incredibly great. As much as I dislike the horror genre and most German movies in general, the expressionist style was perfect. For me, it’s one of the grandest and most beautiful film genre of all times, and in this kind of setting, Lilian Gish’s character is a little too realistic and mind-soothing to fit into the horror-inspiring picture. Nevertheless, the film was greatly executed, and even the children were doing pretty great in their roles. Actually I wouldn’t change a thing about this film, and I find it sad that it was too modern and unusual to be successful at the box office. This film definitely didn’t deserve that treatment.