Reflection in a Dead Diamond

Everyone's a bit of a voyeur sometimes, and it's super fun, but getting stuck in your memories tends to be different.

A collage of paintings of a bloody and luxurious world, where the erotic contrast of all evil exudes through the constant feeling of tranquility, power, and fortune in this time capsule of a mix of various hardboiled, hyper-stylized Lynchian pin-up fragrances, with the pre-Impact 007 phase of hyper-realism from films like The Bourne Identity and Batman Begins.

"I didn't get 'anything' out of this movie," someone might say, and honestly? Screw it. It's fun, sexy, and engaging from beginning to end, and visually memorable, rich with a contagious audacity.

Clearly there are subtexts in the texture beyond the grain of each image, but at this point, the search for a supposed message has become meaningless to me and even more ridiculous; it's already fun without it.

Feed your most schizophrenic thoughts and the responses of your senses and create one.

Serpentik, you've gained a fan. What a character!

• COSTUME DESIGN

Beyond the leather, high heels, and sharp hair, there's potential for iconic weapons, in addition to the already historically powerful stiletto nails.

The rings, the diamond-encrusted leather, the suit and two-faced hat, wow, the silver medallion dress and its festival of lights, and how fundamental it is to the narrative.

It's a pleasure from beginning to end to look at what everyone wears and how they wear it.

No pun intended - trying to explain what is happening here .. with all the layers and timelines ... it is quite impossible. I am impressed how the directors of this keep their head while shooting it (the male director told us in a Q&A how they do it ... still kudos).

This is very much an ode, a thank you to movies from way back ... and James Bond. But also to film making and acting. Fourth walls are broken down ... and we jump back and forth .. you really have to stick with it to understand what is going on. Well acted - but surely not everyones cup of tea to say the least ...

Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025) is a spy thriller movie that follows a retired spy who suspects his former adversaries have resurfaced when his intriguing neighbor vanishes and it was very strange.

Positives for Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025): The movie is certainly unique with the story. The acting from the cast is good enough. The action is directed well enough with the fight choreography. The movie is short and perfect for the story. And finally, this is the type of movie that will become a cult classic.

Negatives for Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025): This movie is strange with the execution and imagery. I'll give credit to the filmmakers for going strange with the story even if it didn't work for me. And finally, the movie was too confusing for me to follow.

Overall, Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025) is the strangest and most ambitious movie I've seen in the year 2025 and it's a movie I respect more than I love and I am happy for everyone who loves this movie.

An absolute fan while growing up in Italy of low budget, scary and extremely stylized GIALLO thrillers (Dario Argento's "Profondo Rosso" & "Suspiria"; Sergio Martino; Lucio Fulci & co), I didn't know this crafty and passionate french film couple, Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet, entirely devoted to directing homages of the Genre. Their last opus in competition in Berlin and winner at Tribeca 2025, is a mezmerizing and unexpected achievement worth discovering. It made me look up their other gem "The Strange Color of your Body's Tears" (2013, released in the US), with 2 more pics to watch (from 2009 & 2017).

The film is an original cocktail of spy, suspense, slasher, romance and kinetic visuals, at times akin to experimental cinema and visual art.

The dosage is high on shiny colours, néo-pop atmospheres, shards, skin masks, split screens and carefully researched vintage italian musical hits. The special FX (by Brussel's Studio l'Equipe) are surprisingly good, especially when it comes to wounds and latex: they don't reek of CGI and deserve a European Film Award next year. Like the overall unknown cast including belgian Yannick Renier (the older brother of french star Jérémie Renier), and 1960's comeback hero FABIO TESTI (the first "Django") who once reined over B-Movies and spaghetti westerns together with Franco Nero and Giuliano Gemma. The speedy grand finale (no spoilers!) still allows the older and elegant Testi (born in 1941) an apt melancholy ending, and a frameshot possibly inspired by...Visconti's "Death in Venice", just to give another idea of how many ideas and ecclectic references our 2 happy helmers can cram in 1hour and 27 minutes.

Reason why I don't understand the bored or dismissive other User's reviews (Wes Anderson's latest miss, "The Phoenician Scheme", has a far more convoluted and tedious plot); surely all the film and key comix references (well known by Q. Tarantino) are exquisitely euro~trash: mainly DIABOLIK, the still going strong comic book based on the ruthless masked killer-robber etched in 1962 by the "in" Giussani sisters of Milan, and made into 3 Blah italo film-sequels by the unininspired Manetti Brothers (2019-22). And even avoiding intellectualizing while reviewing, "REFLECTIONS IN A DEAD DIAMOND" is just that: as much flash and action as a reflection on time and memory failing us, fading from our life, the real one and the one we share on screen.

(PS: to sum the landmarks of the genre & its current heirs: "Neo-Giallo: A Beginner's Guide", article by Isaac Feldberg in PASTE Magazine & online/14-9-2021)

A thrillingly kaleidoscopic and note-perfect pastiche of the Eurospy capers of yesteryear, Reflection in a Dead Diamond offers frenetic spectacle for the discerning genre fan. Yet for all its flash, there is a haunted story simmering beneath its reflective surfaces, taunting us with the possibility of a narrative, while constantly refusing to let a conventional story materialise, instead bombarding us with an ever-impressive montage of brutally surreal and ambitious audiovisual spectacle that fuses Eurotrash flesh onto giallo bones. Waves crash, and the drinks fizz. Diamonds, leather and lashings abound. Directors Cattet and Forzani plunge us into an experiential world that becomes increasingly fragmented as the boundary between fiction and reality blurs throughout the film's rapid-fire pacing and incredibly colourful design. Infused with just the right amount of playful gore, wasting not a single second throughout its expansive reshaping of perception, Reflection in a Dead Diamond offers an array of dizzying stylistic flourishes that make it a visually intoxicating, deliriously entertaining and drop-dead-gorgeous adventure, one that is worth its weight in diamonds.