Though fast paced with an almost documentary feel, Olivier Assayas’s film about the making of a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic silent crime serial Les Vampires (1915/1916) directly evokes Fassbinder’s more stylised and theatrical Beware of a Holy Whore in its satirical depiction of personal and professional jealousies on and off-set and the struggle for artistic integrity. Maggie Cheung stars as herself, imported from Hong Kong to revive European cinema. The film’s reluctant, hyper-sensitive director, supposedly a washed-up Nouvelle Vague master, is played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, one of the key actors of the movement. When he gives up on the film, he is replaced by another burnt-out director, this one played by Lou Castell, who Fassbinder had cast as his demanding and manipulative alter-ego in Beware of a Holy Whore.
France 1996, colour, 99 mins. With English subtitles. Director: Olivier Assayas. With Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Lou Castell.
In collaboration with the Institut Francais Du Royaume Uni.
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