Olivier Assayas In Person! Double Feature: IRMA VEP & DEMONLOVER October 21, 2010

Olivier Assayas In Person! Double Feature: IRMA VEP, 1996, Zeitgeist Films, 96 min. Dir. Olivier Assayas. “[A] dark, brittle…comedy about a film company remaking Feuillade’s silent serial LES VAMPIRES…A once prestigious French director (Jean-Pierre Léaud) casts Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung (playing herself) as villainess Irma Vep, and his sexual infatuation with her is matched by that of the costume designer who escorts her around Paris. The feverish pace of the shooting seems to unleash bad vibes as well as desire, and Assayas follows the delirium as if he were at the center of a hurricane.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader. In French with English subtitles.
Trailer

New Print! DEMONLOVER, 2002, Palm Pictures, 117 min. Updating David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME for the dotcom age, this dark thriller throws together gray-suited executives, high-tech websites and corporate espionage. As it draws links between the worlds of anime, videogames and pay-per-view pornography, Assayas’ film unnervingly suggests that even the most innocuous entertainments are part of a far less wholesome culture of the image. In French with English subtitles. Discussion between films with Olivier Assayas.
Trailer