‘Reflection In a Dead Diamond’ Review: A Dazzling Take On The Spy Thriller [Fantasia 2025]
Of the current crop of directors who have made a style out of emulating other filmmakers’ styles (looking at you, Ti West), Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are classier than most. The fact that they’re European—Belgian, specifically—helps with that; for better or for worse, everything sounds highbrow when you say it in French. More important, however, is the duo’s eye for ravishingly beautiful imagery.
That eye has carried them through three feature films, two of which—Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears_leaned into the fabulously nonsensical sensibilities of vintage giallo films. A third, Let the Corpses Tan, remixed spaghetti westerns to similarly impenetrable effect. Their latest, Reflection In a Dead Diamond, is also kaleidoscopic, borrowing the sharp blades and dizzying psychedelia of a Euro-Bond ripoff. The difference here is that there’s some actual substance behind all that glittering style.
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And oh, does Reflection In a Dead Diamond have style, beginning with a title sequence that pays tribute to Maurice Binder and the Bond series, upping the melodramatic stakes with bursts of diamonds that blossom from silhouetted gunshot wounds. These are soon replaced by real (well, real movie) blood, in action sequences that hit harder and are more intricately choreographed than they really needed to be. A scene where a female assassin slices up a bar full of baddies with sharpened fingernails and a literal stiletto heel is a highlight, fast-paced and, again, way bloodier than one might expect from such an abstract exercise.
The story recalls Mario Bava’s Italo-comic adaptation Danger: Diabolik, pitting handsome superspy John Diman (played by Yannick Renier in his prime, and the legendary Fabio Testi in his older years) against a seductive supervillainess who calls herself Serpentik, in the past and in the present. Serpentik is portrayed by multiple actresses in all of her various eras, a casting choice that suits both the film’s fractured exploration of identity and the title of the comic about her: The 1,000 Faces of Serpentik.
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Those comics, rendered here with solid backgrounds in primary shades that flit across the screen like the pages of a flipbook, are later made into movies. This is where John Diman’s sense of self gets really complicated: Is he replaceable because he might die in the field, or because a long-running franchise needs to refresh its leading man once a decade or so? Cattet and Forzani deliberately blur the lines between the film, the film within the film, and our hero’s memories as the story goes deeper. It’s a technique that both adds layers to Diman’s confusion and cleverly excuses the writer-directors from having to wrap up the assassination plot from earlier in the film.
The theme here is along the lines of a late-period Daniel Craig Bond film like No Time To Die, lamenting the tragedy of the aging playboy both as a character and as the actor who portrays him. When a man becomes an idol, matinee or otherwise, how can you expect him to put down his license to kill? More importantly, is any of it worth it if all there is at the end are fading memories and an unpaid hotel bill?
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As pathetic as his ultimate fate may be, Diman’s journey to retirement is full of excitement. Cattet and Forzani have fun with the concept of superspy gadgets in particular, creating incredible objects like the Paco Rabanne-style dress made up of dozens of mirrored discs—each with a hidden camera embedded inside—worn by Diman’s sometime partner Cantatrice (Kézia Quental). The effect when the mirrors catch the light is spectacular, equaled only by the laser beams that shoot from the high-tech ring shaped like an eye that John wears throughout the film.
These are paired with sequences that place the characters in fantastical environments, like a backgammon board blown up to enormous size that renders them into insignificant pieces. The moneyed “real world,” all priceless artwork and stunning ocean views, is pretty spectacular as well. But what makes Reflection In a Dead Diamond, Cattet and Forzani’s best film to date is the poignant sense of regret that underlies all those glittering surfaces. Here, the emptiness doesn’t just have a point. It is the point.
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Reflection In A Dead Diamond
Summary
Reflection In A Dead Diamond is Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s best film so far, creating a poignant sense of regret that underlies all the film’s glittering surfaces.
Categorized: Reviews
