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Wednesday, November 6, 2002
De Palma's exquisite madness sparkles in 'Fatale'
If there was any question before, "Femme Fatale" is proof that, when unleashed, Brian De Palma is utterly mad: cinema mad, set-piece mad, style mad. It's a beautiful madness.
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The film opens with a heist set at the Cannes Film Festival, a seductive, almost wordless "bait and switch" as much choreographed as engineered, then continues to slow dance through an absurd yet compelling series of coolly executed set pieces.
When Laure (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), the "bait" of the opening scene, betrays her partners, she escapes into a wicked (and utterly improbable) world of double crosses and frame-ups, astounding coincidences and ornate con games, identical twins and multiple identities, voyeurs and seducers.
Her old partners sniff out her trail after a down-on-his-luck paparazzo (Antonio Banderas) splashes her new identity across the Paris tabloids and she reverts to form: a new scheme, a new fall guy. Hitchcock is invoked, "Vertigo" is quoted, and partner-in-homage composer Ryuichi Sakamoto channels the sweetly somber side of Bernard Herrmann for a score as elegant as De Palma's gliding camerawork and smooth editing. There are slow motion and split-screen sequences and even a mischievous and maddening play on De Palma's weakness for false endings.
Laure is hardly the full-blooded character of her old Hollywood inspirations -- she's introduced while watching Barbara Stanwyck, the ultimate icy blond femme fatale, on a TV broadcast of "Double Indemnity" -- but Romijn-Stamos cuts an enigmatic figure with a coarse, blunt American voice that clashes deliciously with her continental poses, both graceful and garish. Banderas is less enigmatic than simply vague.
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| ETIENNE GEORGE | ||
| Con artist Laure's (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) carefully fabricated world is shattered by one click of Nicholas' (Antonio Banderas) shutter. | ||
There's little logic (narrative or emotional) in the seemingly arbitrary story twists and sudden character turns, which makes the careful construction feel all the more demented. Each scene is faceted like a jewel and De Palma strings them together with cinematic grace on a chain of narrative contrivances. It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles.
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