Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Starring: Fabio Testi, Yannick Renier, Koen De Bouw, Maria de Medeiros, Thi Mai Nguyen, Céline Camara
To say the work of the French filmmaking duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani is divisive is an understatement. Like Tarantino and Eli Roth, Cattet and Forzani are obsessed with 20th century Italian genre cinema, and weave their influences into their work. But while Tarantino is a natural storyteller, the French duo are truer to their Italian influences in displaying nary the slightest interest in spinning a comprehensible narrative. Like Argento, Fulci, Bava et al, Cattet and Forzani view cinema foremost as a sensual medium, one closer to opera than theatre. If the average filmmaker is a musician, Cattet and Forzani are turntablists, chopping up fragments of Italian exploitation movies and rearranging them into something fresh and dazzling. Most Italian exploitation movies aren't very good, but they almost all feature at least one jaw-dropping moment. Cattet and Forzani extract and reconfigure these moments the way hip-hop producers reinvent breakbeats from old prog rock records.
After homaging giallo with Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, and spaghetti westerns with Let the Corpses Tan, Cattet and Forzani now turn their attention to the Eurospy thrillers of the 1960s (one assumes they'll get to peplum and cannibal movies at some point). These mostly Italian movies were made as a response to the popularity of the James Bond movies and TV shows like The Avengers and The Man from UNCLE, but many were also inspired by Italy's "fumetti" comic books of the era. Perhaps the most iconic movie of the Eurospy cycle was Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik, a big screen 1968 adaptation of the 'Diabolik' fumetti. Bava's film proves a major influence on Reflection in a Dead Diamond, with villains clad in the same leather outfit worn by that film's criminal anti-hero and all designated names that end in "ik." But Cattet and Forzani reference everything from Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva to Salvador Dali here, along with borrowing from numerous Euro trash soundtracks of the '70s.
The plot, as such, is centred on John Diman, once a secret agent, now living in retirement in a hotel by the sea. The elderly Diman is played by Italian genre legend Fabio Testi, as handsome as ever. When he finds a female guest's corpse by the rocks he suspects his past has caught up with him, as it appears to be the work of an old foe. This leads to a series of extensive flashbacks in which Diman is played as a square-jawed Bond knockoff by Yannick Renier.
Cattet and Forzani use this bare-bones plot to let loose with their vividly cinematic imaginations. They may be guilty of being unable to tell an engaging story, but they sure know how to put a set-piece together. Along with the expected remixing of old genre tropes, there are images and ideas here that you've never seen the like of before. Diman's female colleague (Céline Camara) sports a silver sequin-clad dress that allows her to record short videos on each sequin, which also double as deadly weapons. Diman wears a ring that emits a laser that allows him to see through walls, or to literally read minds when placed against a victim's forehead. It's as though Q dropped acid before inventing his latest batch of gadgets for 007.
The duo have a knack for tactile, squirm-inducing violence, with every sharp edge a potential weapon. You'll spend much of Reflection... wincing as characters have their faces crushed into broken glass and their eyes gouged by villainesses bearing deadly sharp fake fingernails. Visually, much of Reflection... gives the impression that it's not so much set in a James Bond world, but rather in the surreal setting of a classic Bond credits sequence. The plot makes little sense, but let's face it, most spy thrillers are virtually incomprehensible, and few are as intoxicatingly gorgeous to look at as Cattet and Forzani's latest arthouse-meets-grindhouse gem.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond is on Shudder from December 5th.
