REFLECTIONS IN A DEAD DIAMOND
(director/writer: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani; cinematographer: Manu Dacosse; editor: Bernard Beets; cast: Fabio Testi (John Diman-old), Yannick Renier (John Diman-young), Koen De Bouw (Markus Strand, Oil Tycoon), Thi Mai Nguyen (Serpentik), Barbara Hellemans (Serpentik), Sylvia Camarda (Serpentik), Maria De Medeiros (woman bringing John a new graphic spy novel), Céline Camara (Moth, opera diva agent), Kezia Quental (Cantatrice); Runtime: 87; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Pierre Foulon; Shudder/Kozak Films; 2025-Belgium/Luxembourg/ Italy/France-in French, English, Italian with English subtitles)
“The visuals look great, but the exhausting story is absurd.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brussels-based avant-garde French co-directors/writers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (“Amer”/”The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears”) make their zany post-modern film into a visual attraction film, displaying a hodgepodge of visuals that bombards us with many past spy film clips that are condensed in a confusing way into a pulp B-film.
Its source of material comes from the graphic comic book stories on the fictional Diabolik universe, used in the filmmakers other films, but are now referred to as the Serpentik. They are played by several different actresses (Thi Mai Nguyen, Barbara Hellemans, Sylvia Camarda).
The story follows a lonely 70-year-old retired secret agent, John D (Fabio Testi, Italian actor), sitting in his luxury hotel room in Côte d’Azur, in the south of France, who relates to this young James Bond secret agent type (Yannick Renier, Jeremie’s brother) he thinks of as being him when he was a young man, as he tries to recall his wild past as an agent in the 1960s. It should also be noted that John mysteriously pays the hotel bill from a cache of diamonds.
It’s a well-crafted style over substance film that veers back and forth from the present to the past in a non-linear fashion, as it’s filmed in a fragmented form. But it’s stuck with wooden acting, trite dialogue and a pointless story.
“Reflections” is a film rife with gory killings, inexplicable visuals and moody aesthetics, as it both spoofs and pays homage to agent 007 films back in the ’60s and ’70s. Its intent is to offer a blend of giallo, animation and spy genre cliches, as seen through a European lens that dazzles the senses as if tripping on acid.
It’s primed to be a ‘midnight’ arthouse cult film.
In its unique way it tells us the tale of a whirling woman, in all probability the only women in the world, who rotates around a group of men and sparkles as she stabs them and slits their throats. When one of the men touches her wound it releases another skin underneath. The new skin acts as a possible mask that can also be torn off and become her new body no matter how many times it’s peeled back.
Of the scores of visuals shown, the following two were most striking: 1- On the rocky beach at the hotel, the diamond studs pierced the exposed nipple of a sexy broad. 2- The sinister oil tycoon Markus (Koen De Bouw, Belgian actor), who turns his lady sexual conquests into works of murderous art, gets his comeuppance by the agent’s associate, the opera diva known in the spy trade as the Moth (Céline Camara). She uses her special mirrored-dress as both a video recording device and a deadly weapon to rub out the slippery oil man even if he’s under her partner agent’s protection.
The visuals look great, but the exhausting story is absurd.
It played at the Berlin International Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 4/25/2025 GRADE: C+
dennisschwartzreviews.com