I have never had a formal education in such things, but it seems working definition of art is that which brings out the extraordinary in the quotidian, reveals the mystery in the mundane. The artist steals fire from the gods, turns lead into gold. Viewed that way, Olivier Assayas is a deeply perverse filmmaker whose slacker-chic ethos insists on anti-alchemy. Take Maggie Cheung playing herself in _Irma Vep_. She is portrayed as the straight gal and generic genre actress in the midst of lesbian wardrobe hands, flaky technicians, and crazy directors. In real life this cannot be further from the truth. Maggie Cheung is truly extraordinary, the best and possibly most decorated female Chinese dramatic thespian of her generation, whose resume already included Wong's first three films and Kwan's _The Actress_ at that point. She also has a reputation of being something of a diva -- and why shouldn't she be, having been hounded by Hong Kong's relentless paparazi half her life. In _Clean_ she is all but forgettable as an ex-drug addict and mediocre techno singer. When she won best actress at Cannes, I assume it was really for her unrewarded performance in _In the Mood for Love_ the last time around.

Similarly, Assayas repeatedly vulgarizes semi-precious art objects in his films with price tags, robbing them of mystery and emotional content. The painting the dead writer leaves his teenage girlfriend in _Late August, Early September_ is only memorable for its monetary worth. Recently, in _Summer Hours_, when the old servant takes the fish-vase, mistaking it as worthless (i.e., ridding its of societal value), it is transformed into a medieval amulet, its deep sense of personal history instantly restored.