This New Action Thriller Gives Us The Old Man James Bond Movie We Always Wanted [Fantastic Fest]

We have seen many takes on the James Bond character throughout the years, but they've mostly been different variations of his early days. One thing we haven't really seen yet is an Old Man Bond story starring an octogenarian superspy looking back at a decades-long career and maybe getting pulled back in for one last mission. If Amazon won't let Pierce Brosnan do it, then at least we have French duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani ("Let the Corpses Tan") delivering the Old Man Bond movie we've always wanted, and infusing it with enough giallo and anime influences to make their latest film, "Reflection in a Dead Diamond," a must watch for spy thriller fans.

This Belgian spy thriller follows John Diman (Fabio Testi), a former spy spending his retirement in a luxurious hotel in the French Riviera, drinking by the beach and watching his new beautiful young neighbor. Beset with early signs of dementia, the sudden disappearance of the neighbor sends John down memory lane with images of his days as a spy in the '60s (then played by Yannick Renier) flooding his mind. In particular, one mission involving an oil billionaire, nuclear power, and a catsuit-clad assassin named Serpentik, who has more identities than an Impossible Mission Force agent (she is played by multiple actors).

But this is more than just a story of a spy told in two timelines, because Catet and Forzani take inspiration not only from Ian Fleming's Bond and "Diabolik," but also anime legend Satoshi Kon. Specifically, "Reflection in a Dead Diamond" takes inspiration from Kon's masterpiece "Millennium Actress" (an essential watch) and Kon's "stereoscopic writing," which features a fragmented narrative structure that is meant to be experienced several times so you can catch the different layers of the story. Through this approach, the script plays with the idea of whether John actually worked as a spy — or just played one.

Like "Millennium Actress," "Reflection in a Dead Diamond" plays around with the subjectivity of memory, blending reality and fiction. Did John really get involved in a mission with more mask reveals than "Mission: Impossible 2?" — or was that a movie set? It is hard to tell on a scene-by-scene basis, and even when the movie drops some big reveals toward the end, it doesn't exactly care about providing a clear answer.

That ambiguity, combined with the melancholic tone of an aging legend looking back at their career is reminiscent of Kon's "Millennium Actress" and how it blended reality and fiction while just doing a lovely homage to the history of cinema. Here, we get scenes suggesting both a real spy story and also the shooting of a feature film that further muddle John's reliability as a narrator, but also serve as simple nods to the history of spy thrillers. (There is literally a scene with film executives.) 

"Reflection in a Dead Diamond" works wonderfully at a surface level as a spy movie, one with a great retro aesthetic full of cool little gadgets and inventive tech. The use of mirrored shots and split diopters gives the movie a '70s look, while the vibrant use of color brings to mind '70s giallo films. Sure, the contrived narrative may be a bit too much for general audiences and a big-budget franchise like Bond, but the simple idea of an aging superspy looking back at a pivotal mission and pondering the nature of his career is extremely entertaining and too good to pass up. Why shouldn't Pierce Brosnan return as Bond, one last time, and sip drinks by the French Riviera while slowly losing his mind over the one time he encountered a femme fatale with multiple faces?