10/01/2002 Entry:
"Irma Vep - Olivier Assayas (1996)
8 1/2 - Frederico Fellini (1963)"

The original plan this weekend was to see two films by French director Olivier Assayas - Irma Vep and Cold Water. However, Block Cinema's print of Cold Water never showed up, so the audience was offered several choices of other available films to watch, and a poll was taken. One of the choices was Assayas' documentary about Hou Hsiao-hsien, which I was pretty stoked to see, and seemed to be the logical choice given that we were originally supposed to see an Assayas film. However, the audience chose 8 1/2 by a slim margin, such is life. Not that I minded, since I have never seen 8 1/2 either, ashamed as I am to admit it. So instead of two films by Assayas, I got two films about filmmaking.

Irma Vep I actually watched twice since I felt like I had missed some stuff the first time around. As a rule, I generally feel much more comfortable with movies after I see them twice, but aside from anything else there were sections of this film that were in English but quite difficult to understand through the thick French accent of Jean-Pierre Leaud.

I was quite into this, my first film from Assayas. I was reminded at several points of Chungking Express, and it was no surprise when I discovered that like that film, Irma Vep was shot very quickly on a small budget with a loose script. There is a certain kind of detached observational camera which both Assayas and Wong Kar-Wai bring to their pictures. There is a scene where Maggie Cheung is sitting at a table after having been told the character Zoe has a crush on her, and Cheung is just sitting there, a little embarrased and perhaps intrigued, kind of talking but obviously somewhere else. The camera just lingers on her from a above and some distance away as the music drowns out her words. Its a very heartfelt scene, played perfectly by Cheung, who gives a wonderful nuanced performance playing nothing but herself. There are other such lingering shots of Cheung, on a train, on the back of a motorcycle. They speak more about her character than any dialog ever could, although it also speaks to Assayas' adoration of Cheung. They were married somewhere around this time, but later divorced.

I am typically quite susceptible to films which establish mood well, as I connect more with them on a personal and emotional level. Its a commonality amongst many of my favorite filmmakers - Wong, Kieslowski, Kubrick - their ability to establish a feeling or mood or just an air of some emotion throughout their movies. Its so hard to do and its something I feel is often neglected in too many films which seem to be so dead set on getting from point A to point B.

So does this put me on the side of the "intellectuals" as they are referred to in Irma Vep? One of the main themes in the film is just this - film as art for the artist, or film as entertainment for the public. While its obvious that we get to see the film as art at the end of the film, Rosenbaum postulates in his review that in the necklace stealing sequence we get to see the film as commercial enterprise, which is a concept I find intriguing. We do hear conversations from both side of this coin throughout the movie itself.

Serving as the film's center, the sequence wherein Cheung sneaks out and steals the necklace is quite powerful. The mood is set perfectly by the preceeding scene and its discussion of the catsuit. This scene then begins with a manic camera swirling around Cheung while Sonic Youth's "Tunic (Song For Karen)" plays. Its a wonderful choice, quite fitting to the mood, as the camera evokes Cheung's obvious turmoil. Finally she leaves the room, and as her mind appers to clear, so the music falls behind and the camera steadies. This scene made a lot more sense after I read a description of Les Vampires which explains how in that serial Irma Vep and her gang prey exclusively on the rich, and here Maggie Cheung acts out the character which appears to have taken her over in a deeper way. I reject the idea of this as a dream sequence, simply becaue I like it better this way, and it serves to deepen the mystery around Cheung, who otherwise maintains a very professional workman-like presence throughout the proceedings.

It is interesting to me to note that usually what I love about movies about the movies is the sort of in-jokes and self-reflexiveness of it, whereas here I was so taken in by everything else that I find I have hardly discussed it. The one thing I will mention is how our expectation of what a scene will look like while its being filmed (Cheung's double walking across Parisian rooftops) can bear little resemblance to what the scene finally ends up looking like. Not just the post-production scratches and bleats, but the whole focus of the scene, the shakiness. Not like I didn't know that, it just hit me at that point.

I also saw another film about filmmaking this weekend, Fellini's 8 1/2. While I enjoyed seeing it, especially getting to see it projected (although the print was fairly beat up, especially around reel changes) it definitely seems like it needs multiple viewings to really absorb everything it has to offer. Thematically, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of what it is trying to get at, although like Irma Vep, it uses mood and atmosphere incredibly well. Afterwards Bethany brought up the thematic similarities to Woody Allen, which I was emarassed to not even have noticed. Completely different from La Strada, the only other Fellini I've seen. Apparently 8 1/2 serves as the dividing line between his realist era and the more famous films he did later in his life. Sorry, not much else to say about that until I get to it again. Oh, except that Mastroianni was just awesome.

Replies: 2 comments

I just received an email from erstwhile Block programmer Gabe Klinger noting that the COLD WATER screening has been rescheduled for Tuesday, October 8th at 8 p.m. Admission is still free. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll be able to make this show or not, because next week's festival obligations-- to say nothing of work obligations and baseball playoff obligations -- will keep me pretty heavily occupied. Of course, if there's any chance I can make it, I'll be there. I've been waiting to see this film for years. Posted by Scott T. @ 10/02/2002 01:57 PM CST

I will be attending this screening, I'm actually dumping off my advance fest tickets for Punch Drunk Love in order to go, since I'll be able to see PDL whenever I want in due course. Still, it sucks. PDL was one of the things I was most looking forward to given my PTA obsession. Posted by gdd @ 10/02/2002 02:35 PM CST