I’m not sure when, exactly, Olivier Assayas became an eccentric – I
didn’t
catch any warning signs in Late August, Early
September; then again,
I was a bit discomfited by Irma Vep, which was as much an
essay on the filmmaking industry as it was (or was not, quite) a compelling
narrative. With 2002’s Demonlover, a weirdly moralistic screed
involving global corporate intrigue, sexually explicit anime and Internet
porn, he veered into reactionary territory, dramatizing the dehumanizing,
exploitative power of the Web in much the same way David Cronenberg
once made a scary monster out of cable television in Videodrome.