Quick Irma Vep Update because…although I think Irmfinite Vest was a valiant attempt, E7 did it better, sexier, and wasn’t trying so damn hard to be clever.
As no one has texted me, confessing I convinced them to watch the show, I'll assume no one cares about the plot minutia and just use this as an Epilogue (probably Part 1/2) to my original post. Basically: Irma Vep is at the wheel now…she seems to have at least partially taken over Mira’s body…or her body while in the Irma Vep costume…or while on set…or in Paris. After committing grand larceny (against(?) her ex-lover and current director), Mira/Irma makes two more spooky visits, this time for the sake of the film (serial). First speaking with Fala Chen, playing Lily Flower, about Vidal’s departure and why he should return, then to the tortured director himself.
At the disheveled home of her clearly manic director, Mira/Irma first speaks with someone else, like her, not wholly human nor wholly ghost: Jade Lee, René Vidal’s ex-Irma slash ex-wife. SLIPPAGE ALERT: Jade, unsurprisingly, reveals that her heritage is nearly identical to Maggie Cheung’s. Mira, for the first time in dialogue, explicitly engages with the ~meta~* of it all:
Mira: I have this strange guilt about being Irma Vep.
Jade: Why is that?
Mira: I’m a Westerner…Actually, I’m Swedish. But I guess I’ve become an American actress. *
Jade: Are you comfortable with that?
Mira: Swedish, American, whatever. Floating’s fine by me. That’s what actors are about. But that’s just me. I was wondering if, um—
Jade: If?
Mira: Well…Irma Vep was a Chinese character, and it’s this whole cultural appropriation thing going on. I’m not sure what to do with it. I’m not sure I’m on the right side of it. I’m…not sure I’m doing the right thing.
Jade: Irma Vep is not exactly a Chinese character.
Mira: Well you redefined it.
Jade: I did what I could…without really knowing where I was heading. You want to know why?
Mira: Sure
Jade: Because I’ve never seen myself as a Chinese actress. I grew in the UK. My family is from Shanghai. And I did most of my movies in Hong Kong. That gives layers to my identity. It opens me to the world. And hopefully, it makes me a better person.
Mira: So it’s okay for me to be Irma Vep?
Jade: Yes, as long as you let yourself be taken over by her.
*Slipping into Alicia Vikander
I pulled a longer section than I originally intended because it combines two major points (Alicia Vikander the actress/muse and Maggie Cheung the actress/muse/wife) I tried to discuss in my previous post: LAYERS.
This pseudo-paranormal interaction—on the spiritual plain of cinema to which Vidal and Regina refer—seems to ask viewers to look at Irma Vep (22) as a cross section of a unique formation of perspectives, experiences, and histories. There are surely better explanation of this interaction, but I found it particularly effective given the lack of autonomy Jade Lee previously exercised in dialogue with a then spiraling Vidal.
More Plot (sry): Lee is worried the project has broken Vidal…that he might “destroy it”. Vidal is not surprised to see Mira/Irma in his house thanks to his previous bouts with ghosts of his past. Mira watches a screening of his latest edit. ENTER SONIC YOUTH (Mildred Pierce)…and a similar ~vibe~ to Irma Vep (96)’s iconic end sequence. (E7, 39:15ish)
Vidal: You’ve ended up becoming Irma Vep
Mira: Something happens when I put on the costume…You become any character if you live with them long enough. **
Vidal: No, Irma Vep îs different. She’s a soul floating around…searching for a host.
Mira: The host being me.
Vidal: Right now yes. But it could be me. Or Regina. Has she been talking weird recently?
Mira: Actually, she did say some strange things about movies being magic rituals. How they conjure up Lucifer.
Vidal: She told you…Lucifer was a carrier of light, right?
Mira: ha. She did.
Vidal: It’s Irma Vep speaking. Her soul has been haunting cinema for a century. She is a shapeshifter, reinventing herself every generation. But um, strangely she always remains the same and…she never loses any of her aura.
Mira: She’s evil?
Vidal: No-no-no-no. She’s, she’s not evil, she-she’s a spirit. And, um, spirits are not, uh, good or bad. They are just spirits. Cinema awakened her. The same way mediums conjure the dead to reconnect. And Musidora, and, uh, Louis Feuillade conjured Irma Vep…and she lingered. She’s still with us. Sh-sh-she is very, very, very powerful spirit. She can turn against you.
Mira: Why would she?
Vidal: Black magic. There is no controlling it. It plays games with you.
…
Mira: It’s your project. It’s your crew, your cast. It’s your Black magic
Vidal: Do you think it’s the right thing to do?
Jade: Do it René.
**I feel ya girl
Now, you can take about seven hundred different things from this interaction—not the least of which being that Vidal—the closest to Assayas we have seen him yet—seems to dub Regina—our spiritual Kristen Stewart stand-in—a generational vessel for the spirit of Irma Vep (the good, the bad, and the ugly). All of this, as the ghost of his professional and romantic past, the ghost of his potential legacy, and the promise of Irma-possessed future cinema, convince him to move forward with his work.
I’m still dwelling on all of this. No doubt next week’s finale will see more elements of this inter-generational ghost story fray, slip, and weave between reality, show, movie, and serial.
