While spending his days at a resort on the luxurious French Riviera, John Diman (Fabio Testi) becomes fascinated by his neighbor (Sophie Mousel), an alluring young woman who reminds the man of his time as a spy in the 1960s.  When she turns up dead on the beach, John’s training kicks in, and he is determined to find her killer and bring them to justice, but as he grows closer to the heart of the crime, he realizes that demons from his past may have found him in his retirement and are determined to get their revenge at long last. 

Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani write and direct Reflection in a Dead Diamond, “Reflet dans un diamant mort” in its original French, a jam-packed 87-minute spy thriller acquired by Shudder ahead of its premiere at the Berlinale.  The film is not just a celebration of the genre, but of the whole of filmmaking, as Manuel Dacosse’s bold cinematography gave editor Bernard Beets a wide breadth to take the already live-wire story and performances and bring another wave of kinetic energy to the film.   

Reflection begins with an easy enough to follow nesting doll structure as Testi’s retired John recalls his time as a spy, memories in which Yannick Renier takes over as the younger John D.  He is equipped with plenty of gadgets – a ring with a laser behind the diamond, a car with machineguns in the headlights – and his accomplice (Céline Camara) is outfitted in a mirrored dress, each sequin being able to covertly record her surroundings to be played back later.  They are tasked with protecting a wealthy oil tycoon (Koen De Bouw), but it is easier said than done as the businessman is in the crosshairs of Serpentik (Thi Mai Nguyen), an identity-changing villain with face-masking technology that would make even Ethan Hunt blush with jealousy.  As Serpentik gets closer to her target, and in turn, to John D., John is overcome with an erotic paranoia as he begins to see flashes of his nemesis in every woman he meets. Fast forward, and it is Serpentik, the older John believes, who has found him in his retirement some forty years after their initial rendezvous. 

That convoluted description does little to emphasize just how refracted this story actually is.  It is a broken apart nesting doll, spiraling around as it circles the drain, only to be met by the jostling jaws of a garbage disposal, breaking it into a million little pieces that clearly all belong together but are no longer whole.  Anchored only by the memories that are pesky enough to break through John’s refined alcoholism and sun-roasted dehydration, he is hardly a reliable narrator as he jumps to slapdash conclusions about the modern world closing in on him, but these wild narrative swings couple perfectly with the vibrancy on the screen that anything more linear would undermine the tone and pacing of the film.  The sooner audiences can separate the inherent desire to understand exactly what the heck is going on, the easier it will be to accept Reflection as what it is; a shot of adrenaline from a crystaline syringe opening up to a kaleidoscopic world. 

Cattet and Forzani’s Reflection in a Dead Diamond is an unconditional acceptance and celebration of genre akin to the works of Dario Argento, or more closely, Mario Bava.  To compare it with more Western influences, it feels like a James Bond film conceived by Quentin Tarantino, early enough in his career, yet so that his mean streak has not been diluted.  Cattet and Forzani are clearly playing homage to the genre staples – guns, gadgets, girls – and that overflows to Laurie Colson’s production design.  With perioid-appropriate “I Want it All” (1969) performed by Bruno Nicolai and featuring Lara Saint Paul played over an animated title sequence along with comic book-inspired transitions in the later act of the film, when John’s memories become even more fractured, Reflection is a film that is best experienced as a wave and accepted for its immensity than something that is investigated by any gumshoes in the audience.  That quality can be quite abrasive or jarring, sure, but it is also the thrill of watching a film that is never not operating at 110% and because of that, it becomes a celebration of over 100 years of movie making magic as Catter and Forzani pull out every trick in the book, combining them in ways as of yet unseen and certainly unlike anything else that can be found in the homogenous, contemporary landscape.