Mira Harberg (Alicia Vikander), an actor, zips through Paris in a car after the premiere of her latest movie, an inane sci-fi blockbuster. “I thought it was kind of OK,” says her assistant, Regina. Mira laughs in disbelief. At least it’s the final premiere, and it has brought her to France, away from a failed relationship, and where she is about to start shooting a new project. Something worthy and arty and European – a remake of the (real) 1915 Louis Feuillade serial, Les Vampires.
Irma Vep (Sky Atlantic/Now) is a fun, spiky eight-part series that is so meta it makes my head hurt. Mira’s character in the arthouse remake is Irma Vep, a velvet-catsuited villainess and part of the criminal gang known as the Vampires – “pure evil but in a sexy kind of way”, as René Vidal (Vincent Macaigne), the director, explains to her. Irma Vep also happens to be the real-life name of a 1996 film by Olivier Assayas, who has written and directed this show. Here, René also made an earlier Irma Vep film and married its star, as did Assayas, who married the actor Maggie Cheung, who played Vep in his 1996 film. Yes, meta all the way.
