Reflection in a Dead Diamond

              

Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are a French filmmaking couple based in Brussels specializing in homages to the exploitation films of the 1960s and 70s. Their latest, Reflection in a Dead Diamond, is a delirious tribute to the spy films that were released in the 1960s in the wake of James Bond. Fabio Testi, still walking this earth, stars as John Diman, a retired agent who spends his retirement at a hotel on the Riviera drinking vermouth and ogling young girls. We are caught up in the reveries of Diman as he reminisces about his past. In these flashbacks, the young Diman is played by Yannick Renier and has been tasked to protect a shady businessman from assassination. His nemesis is a female assassin named Serpentik who bears more than a passing resemblance to Irma Vep. The always welcome Maria de Medeiros appears in the present day section as a vamp who toys with Testi. Is she Serpentik or the author of the spy novel franchise that morphed into a film series? Reflection in a Dead Diamond provides no pat answers, it exists to provoke and tease the mind's eye.

No film I've seen this past year has placed less emphasis on narrative or characterization. However, I was buoyed by the sheer energy and visual imagination of the film. This film may be just a genre pastiche, but its surreal flourishes are smartly integrated with the film's structure. This film most closely resembles not the Bond films, but their more mod camp followers such as Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik and Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise. The mod look of Reflection in a Dead Diamond is much more than campy eye candy, however. The op art designs of the carpet and walls of the hotel reflect the disorientation of the protagonist and act as portals for the film's travels through time and space. The directors employ all sorts of visual styles including animation. At one point, as a character is being beheaded, the scene is intercut with two of the goriest and greatest paintings of Caravaggio: Judith Beheading Holofernes and David with the Head of Goliath. Except for the obvious, I am not sure what this ultimately means, but, as with Reflection in a Dead Diamond in general, I admire its audacity.