Irma Vep (prod. Olivier Assayas).

HBO’s miniseries, based on the 1996 arthouse film of the same name inspired by the 1915 French silent crime serial Les Vampires, is a wryly appealing meta-commentary about the whims of show business and filmmaking. Revolving around a disillusioned American movie star (Alicia Vikander) and an unstable French director (Vincent Macaigne), not unlike Assayas who helmed the original film, many of the self-aware episodes follow the everyday vagaries of filming on set and the mundane yeat amusing details of production.

This sublimely high-concept version of Irma Vep feels so insular as a very loose television remake of a film (sort of) originally inspired by the process of remaking another classic film all done by the same artist of the former. It’s almost as if we are watching the otherwise undocumented moments of what’s going on between the actual show being filmed within the show.