Reflection in a Dead Diamond (H. Cattet/B. Forzani, 2025)

Brussels-based duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's dazzling fourth feature film, Reflection in a Dead Diamond, sees normal service resumed for the pair as it discards the relatively coherent storytelling of their previous effort, the spaghetti western-influenced Let the Corpses Tan.  While it improves on both its predecessor and the directors' bafflingly overrated debut Amer, it nevertheless lacks the underlying eeriness that made their second film, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, so engrossing.  It seems unlikely that their new film will do too much to improve their commercial standing; even after just four films, there's the keen sense that Cattet and Forzani are simply preaching to the converted.

As with their other features, Reflection in a Dead Diamond sees the husband-and-wife filmmakers looking conspicuously south to Italy, though this time their eyes are fixed less on recreating a giallo and more on fashioning something closer to a 60s Eurospy flick in the vein of Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik.  But don’t be lulled into thinking this makes the film straightforward—in truth, it is borderline incomprehensible, and its slavish recreation of worn spy movie tropes masks a narrative that is virtually impossible to piece together.  Unsurprisingly for this pair, Reflection in a Dead Diamond proves a difficult work to get a hold of, and it proves as discombobulating as Cattet and Forzani's first two feature films.

Reflection in a Dead Diamond follows aging, retired spy John Dimas (Fabio Testi) as he reflects on his storied career in espionage.  Dimas is currently staying in a plush seaside hotel—though he’s been rather tardy in paying his considerable bill.  From there, he reminisces about various missions undertaken by his younger self (Yannick Renier), and many of these extended flashbacks focus on Dimas’ duels with his nemesis, Serpentik (Thi Mai Nguyen), who assassinated an oil magnate (Koen De Bouw) whom Dimas had been tasked with protecting.  While these well-wrought sequences are immersive in themselves, they provide us with few clues as to how everything fits together—or if it’s even meant to.

Whether Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani can push their singular vision much further remains to be seen—after just three films, their impeccable technical skills were as obvious as their cinematic influences.  With the possible exceptions of the second sequels to both Tron and Avatar, it is hard to think of another 2025 release for which the cinema experience feels so necessary.  The mode of exhibition is particularly critical here: Reflection in a Dead Diamond is both a triumph of form over content and an eye-popping spectacle which, even at less than 90 minutes, borders on the fatiguing.  One wonders whether the home viewing experience will allow audiences to see past its jagged, elliptical approach to storytelling.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

BFI Flare: Pillion (Harry Lighton, 2025)

The entirety of BFI Flare’s Best of Year strand will be screened on Sunday, which marks the close of this year’s edition of the festival.  The strand’s title is fairly self-explanatory, and this selection of highlights from the last 12 months includes Harry Lighton’s feature debut Pillion, which arrives at Flare having already enjoyed outings at both the BFI London Film Festival and IFF Rotterdam.  As with every film in this strand—which also includes Dreamers, Baby, and Little Trouble Girls—tickets for Pillion have sold out, but it is always worth checking with the festival box office for any late returns that may become available.

Lighton’s film focuses on meek parking attendant Colin (Harry Melling), a naïve, gentle young man who lives with his parents (Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge).  During a pre-Christmas visit to a pub—where Colin and his dad perform as part of a barbershop quartet—Colin meets taciturn biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), an encounter that leads to a brief alleyway tryst.  Colin is subsequently ghosted by Ray, but eventually the latter gets in touch and invites Colin over; upon arriving, Colin is somewhat surprised to learn that he’ll be the one making the evening meal, but he is happy to be spending time with Ray, so duly obliges.

Colin’s surprise turns to bewilderment as he is made to stand while he eats the pasta dish he's cooked, while Ray and his dog share the sofa.  From this point on, Colin carries out virtually all of the household chores at Ray’s flat, where he sleeps on the floor next to Ray’s bed.  Ray introduces Colin to the biker subculture, and through this Colin witnesses other couples who also operate around a dominant–submissive dynamic.  Ray remains infuriatingly opaque to both the viewer and Colin, and a tense Sunday lunch at Colin’s parents’ house descends into a furious row as his terminally ill mum objects to Ray’s questionable treatment of her son.

Based on Adam Mars-Jones’ novel Box Hill, Pillion is a well-crafted work that never once feels like a first feature, and it veers away from predictability in a way that belies Lighton’s relative inexperience.  Skarsgård is as magnetic a presence as ever, and Sharp and Hodge lend unsurprisingly solid support, but the real revelation comes in the form of the brave performance by Harry Melling, who came to prominence as the insufferably spoiled Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter franchise.  Many will find Pillion a difficult watch, but if you make it through to the other side, you can join the debate surrounding this fascinating film.

Darren Arnold

Images: A24

BFI Flare: Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, 2004)

More than 20 years on from its screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin returns to the big screen as part of this year’s BFI Flare, where it will be shown on Wednesday in a 4K restoration.  For this incarnation of the film, Araki has used new technology to make several tweaks to the original version, meaning its makeover extends well beyond what one might expect from a standard restoration.  Mysterious Skin is in fact a Dutch–US co-production, with Amsterdam-based Fortissimo Films one of three companies responsible for this haunting adaptation of Scott Heim’s eponymous 1995 novel.

Set in Heim’s home town of Hutchinson, Kansas, Mysterious Skin centres on Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian (Brady Corbet), two young men leading separate—and quite different—lives.  Yet Neil and Brian are connected in a most unfortunate way: as eight-year-olds, both were abused by their baseball coach (Bill Sage).  While Neil remembers these events in detail, Brian has no memory of the abuse.  Instead, he is convinced that a five-hour gap following a rained-off game can be explained by UFO abduction, and on this basis he seeks out Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub), a woman who also claims to have encountered aliens.

Upon meeting Avalyn, Brian finds many of the answers he’d hoped for, her theories neatly dovetailing with his suspicions.  But when Brian—who regularly experiences nightmares about being abducted—has a dream in which Neil’s face appears, he becomes determined to track down his old teammate.  Neil, meanwhile, has left Kansas for New York—a move inspired by his best friend Wendy (the late Michelle Trachtenberg).  At college, Brian gets to know another of Neil’s close friends, Eric (Jeff Licon), who takes him to visit Neil—who has returned to Hutchinson for Christmas—in the hope that Brian will finally learn the truth.

Although it may well be Araki’s best film, Mysterious Skin is also his least typical work.  Prior to this, he made a series of films—most notably his so-called Teen Apocalypse Trilogy—largely defined by their transgressive, nihilistic nature.  While those movies were all strictly adults-only fare, Mysterious Skin could be said to be his first film for grownups.  It’s a heartbreaking, wonderfully empathetic work, one whose impact has not diminished in the two decades-plus since its original release.  It was, and remains, a tough watch, with Gordon-Levitt and Corbet excelling as two very different—yet equally damaged—victims of abuse.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI