One of Christopher NolanMost exciting comments on “Tenets “‘s poor Press Tour 2020 revealed the way of inspiration for its time-swinging spy thriller. He wanted to gather the tropes in the sub -genre of his memory and recollection of film Views earlier, hope the mental results would result in a spy movie Urt text – A spying girl consisting of the most in -depth elements of all other spying girls. Closing thought he quoted Sergio Leones “Once Upon A Time in the West” As an example of the same type of approach, but with classic Hollywood west countries.
If “Tenet” Was some kind of definite Arabesque on the spy movie, it would make a nice double count on an elegant movie with “Reflection in a dead diamond“Which just has a premiere in the competition at Berlinale. Committeed by the artistic genre specialists Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the film mixes a myriad of spy thriller brands, such as a particularly skilled croupier, while the “Tenet” would arrange them as Tidy, brutalistic blocks that could be recombined at Will. If these Nolan cross references drive it, Cattet and Forzani really show up with newer manifestations of this sub-genre (although thankfully not with “Kingsman”): The first shot of waves crashes a pearl-scale beach is almost almost Almost identical to opening images of “Inception.”
The little hint of “Inception” is still being considered predominantly of the help of Leeri Connery Bonds, True 70s Softcore and exploitation girls, and conspiratorial mask’s obsessions of quiet French series such as “Les Vampires. The characters change places, identities, ages and roles; is the ultimate “brand” for the audience to tail, understand and bent back to a hopefully linear form. Hailing from Francophone Belgium, and Previous noted for the giallo homage “Amer,” and the spaghetti western tribute “let the corpses tan,” And Forzani’s Work Lives in the Interstices of Genre Pastiche and Arthouse Abstraction, Although to their Credit and Individuals, they definitely do not fit the current trend for so -called “elevated” horror. For all their feelings, “reflection in a dead diamond” has The Cult vappel that measured and flattering genre film festivals and wider, retro B-film culture, although its placement in Berlin’s main competition feels like a statement from the statement curators to inspect what they do a little more seriously.
So by examining the action, the directors are script out two primary character arches, but with their fast-cutting images and off-beat-découpage, to tell them and completely distinguish them is a challenging task, especially in the first act. We are on the Côte d’Azur, and a suave older gentleman played by Fabio Testi is tied away what seems like a persistent, happy pension, how much he is internally meditating on mysterious past events that have never been resolved. Yet when we learn, he actually lives in a dreamy, purgorial interzone at a cozy coastal hotel, where he owes money, we learn to extend his stay indefinitely. His neighbor in room 317 next door has complained at him, and we see the character of the test stare at her later and reveal her to be a beautiful, bikini -clad young woman whose face is never completely exposed by the camera, and he can ‘t take himself for to make a relaxed conversation method.
A strange delivery of a black envelope with gold feed introduces the dashed Yannick Renier like John Diman, a super-spy in an inexact 60s to 70s period informed for his next assignment, if he chooses to accept it (and he does!) . He collaborates with a sequin dressed colleague-code name Moth (Céline Camara) to track oil billionary Markus Strand (Koen de Bouw), which ensures that he remains safe from the threatening progress of the cat suit that is matrix serpentics, which is wisely enclosed by several artists (Among them, Thi Mai Nguyen and Sylvia Camarda), as a Dr. Mabuse-like chimera of free-liquid threats. But remembering the appeal of the antagonists of these films as more desirable rooting interests, compared to the often-mixer, lantern-cuddled heroes, can we sympathize with her focus on this oligarchic figure, who may deserve what comes to him?
Various camera tricks, match cuts and several exposures reveal that Testi plays an older John Diman and reminds of his previous intelligence days as a younger man. Nevertheless, this still does not stand for the many metafictive and cross-media slides Cattet and Forzani benefits over their fairly large 87-minute driving time. The triangular contour of a diamond becomes a portal by which the characters seem to understand their essential forgery: they themselves are forced by malignant forces from the commercial film and the publishing industry, where “John Diman” is just a coat to live, whose whose own carrier has minor interior or subject themselves. Admittedly, this is more difficult to explain in prose than just to imagine a lava lamp that Orgy with a disco ball that a bullet gun fight follows, and with all these narrow excerpts of story that makes itself known in subliminal fragments.
How successful “Reflection in a Dead Diamond” works for you depends on what exact taste of genre film fan you can be. When it comes from Belgium’s Polyglot film industry and folding in Italian as well as Central European reference points, I have seen how it lights up a viewer from that region’s brain, in my chats after screening. For an Anglophone viewer that I myself brought it a fleetier Tarantino pastiche, along with Guy MaddinKeep in mind: A fetish object that both embraces and giggles at this popular gene’s cheesy conventions. It often looks beautiful, but that beauty also has an otentatious quality. In the end, it is an example of how an impeccably designed Arthouse-Gindhouse Crossover can feel both tight with significant to unpack (although they lack more often understood “depth”), but also fleet, foamy and fun.
Rating: B.
“Reflection in a dead diamond” premiered by 2025 Berlin Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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