Irma Vep is the name of the character in the silent film Les Vampires. Maggie Cheung plays herself, contracted to play Irma in a remake. Cue meta-text about film-making, in particular French cinema, but I can't decide if it's meant to be a manifestation of the director's agon, working in the shadow of the French New Wave, a criticism of those directors' later work (I see a lot of Godard in the director here, though he is played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, Truffault's alter ego in his films), or a tribute to that seminal era (with the behind the scenes stuff essentially inspired by Day for Night). It just plays as a massive inside joke, one I don't have the culture to get. Maggie is of course great in it, though her not speaking French means the director speaks in heavily accented English I couldn't really understand without subtitles, though maybe that's part of the joke. Osmosis between her and her character is almost a thing, such as when she spies on the director's wife, and maybe the film industry is populated by vampires, who knows. It's not that movie is ambiguous so much as it is unclear. I have an idea for the an extra 5 seconds after the ending that would have said something more conclusive, but alas. Interesting, but I can't tell if it doesn't give up its secrets easily enough, or if it doesn't really have any to begin with.

New cult canon article: http://www.avclub.com/article/the-new-cult-canon-iirma-vepi-2196

Cinema loves itself