Femme Fatale (2002)

Just when you thought Brian De Palma had got as low as he could, along comes Femme Fatale, a film so bad it's quite brilliant. If you thought previous efforts like Raising Cain and Body Double reached new levels of absurdity, trust me they were just dress rehearsals for Femme Fatale.

Any film which has in its opening moments a lesbian sex scene combined with a jewellery heist in the toilets of the Cannes Film Festival surely signals more bad taste scenes to come, and yes ole Brian doesn't disappoint. The longer the film went on the more the audience laughed, with dialogue usually reserved for porn films - " I don't want you to kiss my ass, just f*** it' - you know you're onto a winner.

The final 15 minutes provided more laughs than any comedy for many a year, surely De Palma's career can only go in one direction, it can't get much lower than this - can it?

I have to give Femme Fatale ten out of ten for all the wrong reasons - truly a classic.

Fmovies: This was one of the best films of 2002. It belongs in the class of films that came out in 2001, like Memento, Donnie Darko, Vanilla Sky and Mulholland Drive. Those where all films that require the viewer to participate, use their brain and have a good time.

Brian De Palma is a master filmmaker. One that has been manipulating audiences for over the last 30 years. The opening of this film is brilliant, with nearly 25 minutes of no dialogue scenes. Yes, there are lines given off here and there as the jewel heist is prepared and executed(it is cool that the heist is the opener and not the climax of this story), but really it is like watching a silent film. The attention to detail in the opening and all through out is what makes the film great, you will watch this over and over and catch something new on each viewing.

Some have argued that De Palma is not an autuer, but indeed he is. He has his trademark long one takes, with the camera gliding around to create a universe that is almost real but still we are aware we are watching fiction. There is the common theme of duel perceptions and persona's burning bright in this film, much like in Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow out. That theme is best illistrated by his use of split screen. Also the slow motion is used to perfection here at critical times, unlike Micheal Bay who uses it to make things look pretty.

This is a great film, yes, it takes some suspension of disbelief but that is why its a movie. If its your first De Palma venture you should check out his older thrillers, like Body Double and Blow out. He is a great movie maker that has influenced todays greats like David Fincher, Quinten Tarantino, Richard Kelly and P.T. Anderson in one way or another.

This was a lot better than I expected, which wasn't a lot. It turned out to be interesting thanks in part to the stylish film-making and the nice job it did in keeping the audience's attention.

It got a few extra points for at least us males gaping at Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who looked spectacular, but lost a few for some big credibility holes in the story.

The film also would have been much better with a different male lead than Antonio Bandaras, someone who could speak English so people could understand him!

With Brian De Palma directing, you get some stylish camera shots in here, so it's a good visual movie....a lot more than just girl-watching. It's a film you could enjoy multiple times, especially if you get a translator for Bandaras.

Femme Fatale fmovies. Brian De Palma made a return to the thriller genre in which he made his name after the gigantic blip that was Mission to Mars, which he suffered two years earlier. But is his return to the genre a hit or another misfire? Neither, actually; it's decent.

The plot follows the escapades of a young lady that screws the mob out of a heist of diamonds, stolen during a thrillingly executed heist at the Cannes film festival. After assuming a new identity, she later returns to Paris where she must evade her past by any means necessary.

Brian De Palma obviously has a talent for filmmaking; this is evident in the majority of his works, particularly the earlier ones. It's not as abundant in this film as it is in some of his others, but that flair is still shown to a certain extent. He does, however, seem to spend a lot of the movie piling on the style, when he would have been better served building character and giving the audience something to care about. Anyone that knows De Palma, knows that he is the man that "does Hitchcock". Here, he doesn't tribute Hitchcock, but rather the melodramatic noir thrillers of the 40's and 50's. This is clearly shown at the start of the movie from the shot where Rebecca Romijn Stamos is sat on a bed, watching the classic noir; Double Indemnity.

Having only seen Stamos previously under heavy make-up in the delicious X-Men films, it was nice to see her here in a 'normal' role, especially as I was one of the people that saw her sex appeal, even under all that attire. De Palma teases the viewer with her at first; he keeps her face hidden behind various objects and camera movements, but when she finally appears; she doesn't disappoint; Rebecca is one beautiful woman. Especially when she dons that brown wig. Starring alongside Stamos, is Antonio Banderas. I like Antonio a lot; I rate him as an actor, and not just for his role in the spectacular Desperado series. However, he isn't at his best in this film. In a role that requires him to don a silly gay accent at certain points, Banderas doesn't quite look at home. Maybe it's just because I'm used to seeing him flying round shooting bad guys, but he struck me as being a little bored.

It may or may not be a good thing that the film is done partly in French, as on one hand it makes it more realistic, and firmly places us in France; but on the other, we have to read subtitles in an American film, and when I watch an American film; I'm not expecting to read subtitles. Especially not ones that disappear before you have a chance to read them fully, as they often do here. Another thing about Femme Fatale is that it never manages to be as sexy as it pretends to be. Despite making almost full use of the lead's assets, it is ultimately more tease than strip. This could be seen as a nod to the classics to which the film owes itself, but for a film that states itself as being a 'steamy thriller', I was expecting slightly more steam.

The film boils down a final and surprising twist. Throughout, the film keeps you guessing, despite being largely hinged on coincidence; and the twist does come as a surprise, but it is that awful, clichéd twist that everyone dreads. However, to De Palma's credit; he does almost make it good. To pull off a twist like the one in this film, the storyteller needs to be talented enough to not make the audience demand their money back when the movie finishes. When the twist first hit, my eyes were starting to role but credit has to be gi

As I read the comments I can't help wonder how is it possible nobody thought this movie is an essay on cinema as well as a re-read of De Palma's own creations and obsessions. The questions on the board suggest that almost nobody pay attention even to the plot. 21 years before, "Blow Out", De Palma's most transparent reference to cinema craftsmanship and the relations between cinema and reality, and, what is most important, to cinema as knowledge (or even revelation), merged from an almost hopeless vision of the world: at the end of the film, Jack Terry, the character played by Travolta, had found the truth, but the price he paid for it is loneliness and madness maybe (just like Hackman at the end of Coppola's "The Conversation"); revelation is for him a sort of curse as he lost his second chance (one of the director's recurrent themes) as far as reality made the grade with its web of lies and corruption. "Femme fatale" shows that De Palma get older and wiser: even though reality is as corrupted and plenty of lies as two decades before, his faith on cinema as knowledge (what is cinema but a dream?) is stronger than then. He also has change his point of view about women. This turn, that started with "Carlito's Way" and even more on "Snake Eyes", is evident here, as he shows his own change of mind through a character that goes from his old kind of female character to the new one. (And those who wonder about the snake, read the Bible --Genesis.) At the very beginning of the movie, Laure's reflection on the tv screen reunites she and Barbara Stanwyck as the summa and the evolution of the femme fatale kind of character. That "DOUBLE indemnity" starts a game of doubles along the movie. Later, when the character of Lily appears, there's a choice to be made: Laure (of course, the reference is to Preminger's "Laura" though the film pays clearer homage to Hitchock's "Vertigo") has to decide to became Phyllis Dietrichson or to became Lily. The "dream strategy" is full of risk; in fact, when a writer/director uses it as a solution, the task is condemned to failure. But De Palma uses it masterfully, because dream is not a solution but a way: there are ten minutes of movie left after it to give that "dream strategy" a new sense and a justification that any film ever gave. As I wrote before, that dream is built as a movie watch by both audience and Laure. But the collage made by Banderas character is also a movie: a frame by frame (or scene by scene) construction of a reality that is out-of-time of that reality. De Palma, at the end of the film, tell us: that is what cinema is made of -different scenes shot under diverse lights in separate times, joined under one look and put together to make sense. We, as spectators, are the ones that can contemplate that work finished, and this final revelation, as the one at the end of "Citizen Kane", ask us to be able to join the pieces and reach knowledge cinema can give. There is a lot to write about this movie; these are only silly notes compared to the type of study "Femme Fatale" deserves. For those who are not interested on analysing a movie and just want to know if they will have fun watching it, I can only say that you can enjoyed the movie, with its twists and its suspense, even if you don't notice what I am talking about. "Femme Fatale" is an underrated masterpiece. Long live Brian De Palma (even if he has to live in France).

Mr. De Palma is not a critics' darling, and as such his latest, Femme Fatale, has come in for his usual roasting. Is it deserved? Not if you love a film that embraces the visual splendour and techniques that make cinema a unique art form.

Femme Fatale sees De Palma returning to his forte: the suspense thriller. It is a welcome return considering his recent fare have seen him straying to more mainstream efforts - Mission to Mars, Mission: Impossible - that were shells of his virtuoso films of the late 70s and early 80s.

The film leads off with a stunning 20-minute Jewel heist sequence that takes place during the Cannes film festival of 2001. Completely bereft of dialogue, a la Topkapi, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos's character has the enviable task of lifting a diamond dress from Rie Rasmussun in a bathroom encounter. His first original screenplay in 10 years, De Palma writes a tightly-plotted tale that certainly does not lead the audience by the hand, and the resulting twists it provides will allow different perspectives on the film's events with repeat viewings.

Antonio Banderas - usually lost without cause if not working with Robert Rodriguez - does what he needs to do with efficiency; Romijn-Stamos, the Femme Fatale of the title, provides the eye candy. The acting is not top drawer, but it does not need to be: we're here to see an auteur in his element: De Palma delivers. Cinema is more than a stage with a camera - De Palma uses his camera and cinema technique to brilliant effect. Huge swooping camera movements, split-screen, slow motion sequences, no dialogue and an enveloping orchestral score; De Palma's signature is prevalent. And that is good: a director should never be an autonomous entity, happy to turn out derivative drivel that get the masses in and out - directors for hire are too commonplace in Hollywood today - and that is something that De Palma could never be accused of.

Femme Fatale is a great example of a director working in a genre he loves and understands, and given the freedom to create. Total cinema? Its smell is sure intoxicating. Welcome back, Mr. De Palma.