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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.

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