A Film Canon

This serial masterpiece extends and refines the narrative complexity of Fantomas, largely by replacing the lone criminal with an organisation - the Vampires - whose ostensible leader - Irma Vep (Musidora) - is gradually stripped of her omniscience, thereby evoking a conspiracy so great as to be beyond the purview of any one of its components, and so require a supernatural apprehension that is variously figured in terms of divination, hypnotism, satanism, and dark ritual. As with the earlier film, conspiracy is indistinguishable from continguity, with the result that the Parisian suburban and exurban sprawl is even more restlessly pursued, most memorably in a sequence that takes place in and around an abandoned fort, while the metropolis itself benefits from a great deal more on-location shooting, especially in and around Montmarte. Combined with the lithe, acrobatic movements of the criminals, this defamiliarises urban life, shrouding the streets in shadow, and reducing their population to a wandering, spectral presence; an unease that supervenes, and often contradicts, the serial's more conventional dependence on tension, reaching its logical conclusion in the absolute indistinguishability of criminal and pursuer - as opposed to Fantomas' (at least theoretical) affirmation of the 'disguise' as third party - and, more specifically, in the transfer of narrative propulsion from policeman to investigative reporter, which enables a showdown between two writer/director surrogates.