Saw Irma Vep, a movie-movie about the filming of a fictitious remake of the silent serial Les Vampires. The film is ultimately a critique of the state of French filmmaking. It follows Maggie Cheung (as herself) as she arrives in Paris to shoot this film. When she arrives, no is there to greet her or pick her up and she gets lost and abandoned in a hectic film-studio office. She's excited to ditch Hong Kong-style big-budget action films and be a classy French film for once. Alas, everyone she talks to is all too eager to dump on the classiness of French films. An interviewer scoffs when she praises the original silent film. He claims that films for "elites" have suffocated French films.
The French filmmakers are simultaneously hungry for the big money of crassly commercial films but also very aware of their own legacy. Some feel crushed by the weight of having to compete with Truffaut and Goddard while others attempt kill their heroes, labelling them as elitists and inaccessible. The end of the film reveals their smallness however. Maggie doesn't need them. She has an agent in Hollywood and backup plans with Ridley Scott. She is the rare bird of art and she has flown.
At the same time, they also don't appreciate their own, home-grown talent. The film is initially helmed by a fictional director who is widely praised by who everyone agrees isn't as good as he used to be. He leaves the project unable to figure out how to make a remake relevant. We get to see his in-progress work and it's very artsy, very off-putting, but definitely much more than just a remake. There's a sense, in the closing moments of the film, that an amazing film that could have been was killed.
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