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I love filmmakers who not only have a lane and stick to that lane, but find new and inventive ways to breathe life into that lane. Belgian writer-directing duo of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cattet and Bruno Forzani shattered my cineaste brain at a film festival in 2013 with their giallo pastiche, The Strange Color of Your Body\u2019s Tears<\/a><\/em>, a sensual and surreal series of paranoia, violence, and nudity. The pair\u2019s love for Italian cult cinema from the \u201960s and \u201970s plus their fascination with pop-art stylings and loud, squeaky leather made them a must-watch pair for me. 2017\u2019s Let the Corpses Tan<\/a><\/em> took that mentality to the desert for a crime film with Spaghetti western aspirations. Their latest, Reflection in a Dead Diamond<\/em>, sets their sights on spy capers, and it\u2019s another glorious, hallucinatory trip.<\/p>\n Cattet and Forzani\u2019s movies often receive the label \u201cconfusing,\u201d which I suppose is warranted. They tend to focus on unfolding their stories intuitively rather than in a straightforward fashion. Their films are a vibe and you have to vibe with them to get it. If you watch movies entirely for plot, you\u2019ll find yourself frustrated. But if you settle in to their pacing, their visuals, their soundscape\u2014all perfectly and precisely executed\u2014you can get the gist, which is really all you need.<\/p>\n Reflection in a Dead Diamond<\/em> might be the pair\u2019s most interesting and, dare I say, fun movie yet. It follows a retired spy (Italian genre legend Fabio Testi) living at a nearly empty hotel on the Riviera who believes his adversaries have resurfaced when his comely neighbor disappears. He begins a series of flashbacks to him as a younger man (Yannick Ranier) on missions involving stolen diamonds, the death of his lover\/partner, and the female thief, Serpentik (Thi Mai Nguyen), who has alluded him for decades.<\/p>\n