As a pure comedy of errors, Irma Vep works marvelously as it follows the slings and arrows that are thrown towards an ill-fated reboot of the classic silent film Les Vampires. Yet, what director Olivier Assayas really wants us to see is how much the art of film has been stripped away by unnecessary concerns about commercial appeal, the loss of the auteur voice and the slapping down of anyone who dares attempt an original idea.

The film follows Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung as she enters this fray, a fish out of water cast as the lead in this remake by a sensitive French director (played with sensitive grace by Jean-Pierre Leaud). In her first scenes, she attempts to navigate this swirl of people arguing about what gun is right for the film, miscommunicating, and generally dealing with the messy business of trying to get a movie made in this modern age (this was 1997, things behind the scenes are surely much messier now).

Cheung gamely tries to make the best of this uncomfortable situation but the film is doomed from the start. Production delays pile up. Crewmembers fight. And the director starts to feel encroached upon, his vision of an updated classic sullied. When the film within a film is finally done for, Assayas then takes us on an extended metaphor. A beautifully constructed scene where Cheung – poured into a latex cat suit – decides to fully inhabit the role she was hired to play: a jewel thief. She sneaks into a hotel room and steals a necklace sitting on the bathroom counter. She makes her way to the rooftop in the rain where she marvels and recoils at her accomplishment. And in one slow movement, pitches the ill-gotten reward off the roof.

Read into that what you will, but even stared at directly – as a simple set piece to let Cheung prance around in a skintight outfit to the tune of a Sonic Youth song – it is the best 15 minutes of the film. Yet, taken, as I like to think Assayas meant, as Cheung representing the pure vision of an artist, snatching their prize/inspiration away and then being forced to let it slip out of their hands, it becomes even more breathtaking.