Bruno Forzani

Reflection in a Dead Diamond

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The young John D driving a car

Arthouse discovers the rigours of genre in Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Reflet dans un diamant mort), a vogue-ing pastiche of Bond movies with a bit of Death in Venice. If you like the work of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, who have been doing this sort of thing for over 20 years, in films like Amer, The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears and Let the Corpses Tan, this will be catnip. Personally, I thought this latest feature – brilliantly assembled though it is – exposed a weak flank. They can make the richest, lushest and most referential movies possibly ever. But can they tell a good story? They would probably argue … Read more

Let the Corpses Tan

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Skull in the foreground, human behind

Pastiche nudged into madness, Let the Corpses Tan is a Sergio Leone film on psychoactive substances and the third feature-length outing for Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, who specialise in this sort of weird pastiche/homage. Their 2009 feature debut, Amer, baked Lynch, Kubrick, Svankmajer and Argento into a kaleidoscopic revisit to the Euro soft porn/arthouse crossover of the 1970s. Their The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears was an onslaught of stylishness in a dream-infused slasher movie ripe as a liquid Camembert. In between they also did the O Is for Orgasm segment of The ABCs of Death compendium movie, a sado-masochism-inflected view of sexual congress that was all leather, taut stomach and … Read more