Feed My Fetish, Please: Cattet & Forzani Pay Homage to the Eurospy in Dazzling Pastiche
Whether giallo gore or Western shaped, their films don’t lose their shape, as evidenced by Reflection in a Dead Diamond, the fourth feature from Belgian directing duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. But the titular gems are certainly not a girl’s best friend in this violent, loopy homage to the 1960s Eurospy craze, the latest genre the directors have plundered for their own brand of narrative which plays like a fetish mobius strip. Headlined by the great Fabio Testi, a remnant from the period of filmmaking being resurrected here, it’s a gonzo merry-go-round of visual textures which spins into a veritable oblivion.
John (Testi), who is seventy, lives a solitary existence in an exquisite hotel on the French Riviera. He’s intensely interested in the beautiful woman staying in the room next door, and when she suddenly pops up dead, he’s convinced it may have something to do with his past. Yannick Renier (brother of Jeremie) is the younger version of John, who decades prior was an international spy involved in a seedy venture to protect a monstrous oil tycoon, Markus Strand. This involves a case full of sparkling diamonds and vague rumblings about nuclear weaponry. When his partner (Céline Camara) is viciously murdered by Strand, John decides to disobey his orders and kill the man, but he’s beaten to the punch by a mysterious and dangerous assassin known as Serpentik, a woman constantly shape shifting and changing her face. As the elder version of John lapses into these memories, he’s approached by a woman (Maria de Medeiros), a figure from his past who brings John a newly published graphic novel about John, the super spy.
Since Amer, their 2009 debut, it’s clear Cattet and Forzani have always been more interested in style over substance, their latest being no exception. Their sublimely detailed sequences rival the level of pastiche employed by Quentin Tarantino, but their generally insane storylines also actually unfold like those glorious oddities churned out endlessly in the 60s and 70s. Piecing together what’s actually going on in Reflection in a Dead Diamond is less entertaining than letting its bizarreness simply wash over you. However, increasingly it appears the film involves a nostalgic fantasy for its main character which maybe turns into a fugue state.
Arguably, the eyes are the diamonds of the face, and there are cracked, stabbed, and gouged eyeballs galore in the large helpings of gory violence sprinkled throughout. But the narrative is also concerned with past memories, which are also intertwined in their own ambiguities, such as the younger John being a man who starred in films (or did he?) about this popular super spy, based on graphic novels. And perhaps John’s memories are simply evidence of a disorder. Either way, the briefcase of diamonds makes another late staged appearance as John’s attempt to pay his mounting bills at the hotel. Alas, they are fake (or, perhaps more appropriately, dead diamonds).
Veritably, Reflection in a Dead Diamond speaks to the mechanism of the subject matter, which imitates a period and style but perhaps makes less sense without the context of its inspirations. While that’s not to say it’s a ‘fake’ film, it also arguably doesn’t have a ‘life’ of its own in a narrative sense. However, once again, as a sumptuous visual spectacle shot by the formidable DP Manu Dacosse, it’s a labyrinth worth getting lost in.
Reviewed on February 21st at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival (75th edition) – Main Competition. 87 mins
★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
