REFLECTION in a Dead Diamond, now streaming on Shudder, is like a glimpse into the mind of James Bond creator Ian Fleming during a deranged acid flashback of sun-soaked and boozy Côte d’Azur proportions.
A homage to stylish 1960s European spy movies, this, the latest film from husband-and-wife team Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, is a visual feast brimming over with vivacious gangsters, drop dead gorgeous damsels, and more gin than any chauvinistic secret agent could possibly guzzle.
Seen through a fragmented and shimmering lens, the scene is set in a luxury hotel on the French Riviera where retired spy John D (Fabio Testi/Yannick Renier) whiles away his afternoons lost in haunted reminiscences that are equal parts bizarre and unhinged. Think John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar meets Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville.
The 70-year-old now lives in solitary luxury in a grand hotel on the Côte d’Azur. However, his interest is soon sparked by the woman in the room next door who reminds him of his wild years on the Riviera in the 1960s, back when he was a debonair international spy in a world brimming with peril and promise.
When this woman mysteriously disappears, John becomes lost in a series of flashbacks from his captivating past. The glamorous and grotesque are woven together to paint an affectionate homage to European movies from the swinging sixties.
Is our retired hero in the middle of a mental break? A gin-soaked meltdown? Or perhaps, just bored to distraction?
It is hard to decipher what’s truly happening in this gloriously outlandish avant-garde spy thriller with its stunning and slightly twisted giallo stylings as it overflows with kaleidoscopic riches from the archives of cult cinema. There’s a nod and a wink to violent grindhouse exploitation films along the way also, with French new wave cinema also getting an honourable tip of the hat.
Lush, grandiose and downright bonkers, Reflection in a Dead Diamond is a perfectly paranoid slice of James Bond adventure a la William S. Burroughs.
(4/5)