Final Rating: 3.5/5
Reflection in a Dead Diamond is a surreal deconstruction of the classic spy movie. Rife with homages to genre classics like James Bond, Diamond recontextualizes the glitz and glamour of special agents to question the impact of the escapist fantasy they represent.
Diamond stars Fabio Testi as the aging John Diman. Once the illustrious “Agent John,” Diman now spends his days drinking alone on the beach ogling sunbathers and reminiscing about his glory days. In flashbacks, John is shown as a suave man of action, taking out legions of faceless goons before wooing conveniently trapped supermodels. Yannick Renier plays John in his younger years, clearly evoking Sean Connery’s womanizing, unstoppable take on Bond.
Reflection is more than homage. In the hands of directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, John’s charisma makes him an unstoppable force, but also an unthinking, uncaring one. John uses his charm to push his way through every door, cutting down villains and their minions, acquiring vast amounts of diamonds, but never totally seeming to grasp the gravity of the intergovernmental conflicts he’s been thrust in the middle of. Renier’s John feels sociopathic, more a sexy automaton than a person.
In the present, Testi’s John deals with the fallout. Having spent his life as a blunt instrument, John’s last days see him as a paranoid alcoholic. Every person reminds John of a previous mission, every woman a previous lover or femme fatale, and every diamond brings him back to a time when his every meal in lavish European resorts was comped by impossibly rich spy agencies. The past and present are woven together so strongly, it’s as if John refuses to even acknowledge he could age out of his heyday.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond is visually striking, endlessly reverent to its ‘60s influences. Light on dialogue, save for clichés, the film’s substance is largely in its style, with shots explicitly referencing Dr. No and Diamonds are Forever, reframed to emphasize the violence and cruelty of the spy.
In the hands of Cattet and Forzani, symbols of the era take on entirely different roles: the wonderfully cryptic “Bond Girl” (played by Celine Camara) is more a mentor figure than a love interest; diamonds symbolize doom more often than riches; the mastermind, Markus Strand (Koen de Bouw), is portrayed as little more than a victim of John’s random violence, rather than a scheming villain.
Caught between the past and the present, John is constantly confronted by the possibility that his work – illustrious, secretive, and ostensibly important – amounted to basically nothing. Cattet and Forzani’s vision is nihilistic while condemning the escapism of the secret agent.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond was seen during the 2025 Toronto After Dark Film Festival.
