Irma Vep

Irma Vep (1996) is Olivier Assayas's French comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. A worn-out Parisian director, Réné Vidal, decides to remake Louis Feuillade's 1915 silent serial Les Vampires — and casts Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung, playing herself, in the lead role of Irma Vep. She speaks no French. The crew has no idea what to make of her.

Cheung arrives to work and lands in a beautifully awkward situation: a costume designer who develops a crush on her, jealous French actresses, and Jean-Pierre Léaud as the unraveling Vidal, growing less coherent by the day. At some point she puts on the latex catsuit, steps out onto the hotel rooftops, and it's unclear whether she's rehearsing or has simply become the character.

Assayas made this as an insider's portrait of French arthouse cinema — its pretensions, its rituals, its quietly absurd self-regard — all filtered through the gaze of someone who genuinely doesn't belong there. Dry, clever, and stranger than it looks at first. Stream Irma Vep (1996) online on iFILM.