Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

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Monterey Jack
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#26 Post by Monterey Jack » Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:58 pm

De Palma's last great film, twisty and lush and engrossing and sexy and gleefully bonkers.

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swo17
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#27 Post by swo17 » Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:04 pm

Yes, those are all adjectives

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Furstemberg
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#28 Post by Furstemberg » Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:31 am

domino harvey wrote:
Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:31 pm
And exactly one good film got away with an ending like this, nearly sixty years before this was made
I am curious.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#29 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:12 am

Furstemberg wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:31 am
domino harvey wrote:
Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:31 pm
And exactly one good film got away with an ending like this, nearly sixty years before this was made
I am curious.
Pretty sure it’s
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The Woman in the Window

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domino harvey
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#30 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 28, 2022 10:12 am

Yep!

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Monterey Jack
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#31 Post by Monterey Jack » Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:08 pm

Finally, a Blu release coming from Shout...

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tolbs1010
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#32 Post by tolbs1010 » Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:30 pm

Monterey Jack wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:08 pm
Finally, a Blu release coming from Shout...
Your persistent advocacy for this release is appreciated by fellow fans like me. Someone at Warner wanted to keep Monterey Jack mild.

For me, this is one of De Palma's best, though not many seem to agree.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#33 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:22 pm

I'd be open to revisiting the film if any one of its die-hard defenders gave more than a one-line reason for loving it so much! Sell me on an alternative way of seeing this film, please

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tolbs1010
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#34 Post by tolbs1010 » Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:54 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:22 pm
I'd be open to revisiting the film if any one of its die-hard defenders gave more than a one-line reason for loving it so much! Sell me on an alternative way of seeing this film, please
When I saw the film in the theater upon initial release, I was blown away by the film making. The graceful flow of the images, the rhythms of the editing, the transitions between scenes--all of these qualities indicate a very skilled film maker and his technicians having fun utilizing their considerable skill. The joy in the film making and the pleasure of seeing a great ballet of camera, actors, and sound really comes through for me. Is it all in service of a slightly ridiculous story? Yes, but I think it is a fun ride and, IIRC, the plot does make some kind of crazy sense. It has been a few years since I've seen it, so I look forward to being surprised and delighted by it again with Shout's blu ray.

When I have showed this film to friends, even ones that are passionate film fans, the reactions have not been kind. The criticism seems to focus on "plot holes", narrative plausibility, and a dismissive attitude toward the performances--especially Rebecca Romijn. Okay fine. Narrative focus and plausibility have never been De Palma's strengths. His films have always seemed informed more by other movies than literary conceits or any attempt at realism. There is an over-the-top quality to his best work that excites some viewers and turns others off. As to Romijn's performance, I think she is quite good in the role, which requires a wide range of emotional reactions in addition to the physical demands (both beauty and action-related).

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knives
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#35 Post by knives » Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:56 pm

I love it as a deliberately illogical dreamscape undermining its own premise of ‘femme fatale’ by having us experience the complex emotions such a character experiences. It seems like DePalma trying to take his favorite stories and changing our sympathies. In a normal film, think Eye of the Beholder, Banderas (in one of his best performances) would be the lead and we’d experience Romjin as this mysterious woman of danger.

The score and image also fuse together like a dance making me at times wish for a version of the film sans dialogue.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#36 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:46 pm

tolbs1010 wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:54 pm
The joy in the film making and the pleasure of seeing a great ballet of camera, actors, and sound really comes through for me. Is it all in service of a slightly ridiculous story? Yes, but I think it is a fun ride and, IIRC, the plot does make some kind of crazy sense.

When I have showed this film to friends, even ones that are passionate film fans, the reactions have not been kind. The criticism seems to focus on "plot holes", narrative plausibility, and a dismissive attitude toward the performances--especially Rebecca Romijn. Okay fine. Narrative focus and plausibility have never been De Palma's strengths. His films have always seemed informed more by other movies than literary conceits or any attempt at realism. There is an over-the-top quality to his best work that excites some viewers and turns others off.
Thanks for expanding. For the record, I don't hate the film, and I agree regarding De Palma's intersection of style and ethos. I've always seen Femme Fatale as exactly that: De Palma camping 'himself' in a sense, by using the most absurd noir ideas through playing with narrative and roles, and adopting the dumbest and laziest movie twist knowingly, to accentuate a tribute to the fantastical possibilities of exaggerated pastiche. I recall a portion of the film being fun to engage with, but I'm not the biggest De Palma fan and find his vacuous aping obnoxious, so a self-aware exercise making fun of the worst parts of his approach to film isn't going to impress me. I get a lot more out of De Palma when he takes obvious influences and transforms them into something wholly original and unique in tone and exhibition with his own sense of deliberately-aimed and controlled style, like Blow Out. This film just feels like him spraying paint all over the walls, which can work with me from some artists, but not when the artist in question uses some colors I like that reframe the familiar in a new light, and others that when used inevitably concoct cheap copycat paintings with no added value.
knives wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:56 pm
I love it as a deliberately illogical dreamscape undermining its own premise of ‘femme fatale’ by having us experience the complex emotions such a character experiences. It seems like DePalma trying to take his favorite stories and changing our sympathies. In a normal film, think Eye of the Beholder, Banderas (in one of his best performances) would be the lead and we’d experience Romjin as this mysterious woman of danger.
That's a very interesting thought. I'd be curious to hear a more thorough writeup at some point if you feel like taking the time- it might prompt a revisit if fleshed out a tad to contrast (or work in conjunction with) my perception above, or touch in specifics I could draw upon while viewing

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knives
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#37 Post by knives » Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:10 pm

I’m short on time lately, but could certainly try something and it would be a good excuse for a revisit. Contrary to tolbs, I find this one of his least style leading films and instead believe it to be one where the character forces a style out.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#38 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:42 pm

I'm tempted to revisit myself- there are just some films that stay with me and incite motivation to return to despite original negative feelings, and I've been open about many of my favorite films of all time being ones I originally loathed or discarded with a shrug upon first viewing. The most recently example of an inexplicable itch to return was Flower, proving yet again that these are worthy excursions, so I'll look forward to a hypothetical future post from you

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Randall Maysin Again
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#39 Post by Randall Maysin Again » Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:20 pm

I just finished watching this two seconds ago--I loved it! I, uh, actually think this is perhaps De Palma's most completely satisfying thriller narrative, and in general the best writing I've seen him cough up...? Haha. Yup, this is top-tier De Palma for moi. I don't really see how this is so excruciatingly campy either--the camp is in where the plot machinations ultimately end up, not so much the characters or onscreen events--at least compared to something like The Fury. I didn't think Rebecca Romijn-whatever sucked, either. I like to flatter myself with the notion that De Palma agrees with me about how his films (that I've seen anyway) should be ranked, because for me there is a direct, just about one-to-one correlation between how impassioned his camerawork is and the quality of the films according to me. Compare the constantly slithering and twisting camera movement in Femme fatale, which is highly un-gratuitous by De Palma standards, to say the hollow, culture-encrusted, emptily obsessive belligerence of Obsession, where I really felt he was not energized by the material and just going through the motions.

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The Curious Sofa
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#40 Post by The Curious Sofa » Tue Mar 01, 2022 2:54 am

I'm with Stephanie Zacharek, when it comes to Rebecca Romijn's performance in Femme Fatale.
There's one more actress who belongs on that list, an actress who gave a performance that I've found myself defending over and over again. I feel protective of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' performance in "Femme Fatale" not only because I think it's marvelously, wickedly entertaining, but because I think there's something essentially misogynist about the way many critics and moviegoers have so sneeringly dismissed her.

Romijn-Stamos plays Lily/Laure (she goes by both names), a ruthless thief and hustler who uses every one of her God-given feminine resources to get exactly what she wants. At one point she impersonates a pouty, doe-eyed French girl (speaking perfect French, although it's clear her real background is plain old American alley cat) to snare a rich American diplomat; later she shows up as a mysterious Hitchcock blond (a sister in spirit and in wiles to "Basic Instinct's" Catherine Tramell) who struts through Paris in an armor softly forged from cream cashmere and Hermès silk -- the battle garb of l'amour, worn by a true warrior.

Romijn-Stamos has legs like lily stems. She used to be a model, which, in the realm of discussion about "serious" acting, is one strike against her; it's universally assumed that models simply aren't intelligent enough to act. (I think there are several actresses who disprove that theory, Anjelica Huston among them, but there's simply no changing some people's alleged minds on the matter.) I've heard some people say that Romijn-Stamos gives a decent performance, but only because director Brian De Palma told her exactly what to do.

Romijn-Stamos is a relative beginner at acting, and there's no doubt De Palma must have guided her. But it's not him we're looking at up there on the screen; it's not his body moving so supply and so unself-consciously in that deliciously outlandish striptease scene; it's not his voice, declaring in those intentionally flat-as-the-Great-Plains tones, tones that suddenly betray Lily/Laure's workaday roots (even though we never find out exactly what those roots are): "I'm a bad girl. Real bad."

There are people who have enjoyed "Femme Fatale" but who still claim that Romijn-Stamos couldn't possibly have been in on the joke of her character. But I don't see how an actress could give such an intentionally funny, sharp-edged performance and have it be an accident, or simply the result of the puppet-master's having pulled the right strings. All actors know that part of their job is to use their bodies. And yet there are plenty of actresses with beautiful bodies who have no sense of physicality, of how to play a role with their limbs as well as their minds. (In her first movie role, Romijn-Stamos pretty much had only her body to work with: As Mystique in "X-Men," she had no lines and played the entire movie in a costume that was little more than a coat of blue body paint.)

One of the most resonant images from "Femme Fatale" is that of Romijn-Stamos tangling with Antonio Banderas on a Parisian bridge, her hair a windblown tumble of blond curls, her eyes circled with eyeliner like an echo of Parisian soot. She's dressed in fetching black leather and lace, impeccably cut in the French way, but there's something about her defiant stance that makes her much more than just a tall, lovely girl who looks good in clothes. She's nervy and determined in the way she carries herself, as if she'd come to an understanding of her character within her very bones and muscles.

I don't know how Romijn-Stamos will be in other movies, working with other directors. But I consider her performance in "Femme Fatale" work well done, and I wouldn't hesitate to point to the role as a fascinating, beefy and, yes, challenging one. I will most certainly watch "Femme Fatale" again someday, and once again I'll relish its artful disreputability. But I'll never again go near "The Hours" if I can help it. I see "Femme Fatale" as a covertly feminist movie, one that embraces the femme fatale not just as an icon but as a disguise for the real human being underneath. Lily/Laure, a femme fatale (the most heavily typed in the movies!), feels more real and more vivid to me than the carefully wrought, "serious" characters in "The Hours."
https://www.salon.com/2003/03/20/actresses/


I also thought she was a far better Mystique in the X-Man movies. Jennifer Lawrence may be a more versatile actress (or maybe we just don't know, Romjin was never given the opportunities) but she lacked the physicality and attitude Romjin brought to the role.
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Apart from The Wizard of Oz, nobody is a fan of "it all was a dream" endings, but the way De Palma pulls this off, it feels more like a parallel universe narrative. In a lot of ways Femme Fatale isn't that different from Mulholland Drive, it always struck me as its more upbeat sibling and I love it no less.
Last edited by The Curious Sofa on Tue Mar 01, 2022 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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John Cope
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#41 Post by John Cope » Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:20 am

Is this De Palma's last Great film? The others after this (even Domino) have their moments, most often related to their deployment of signature De Palma tropes or set pieces, but none of them hold together as fully as this one. The bravura opening sequence is of course bravura De Palma with all the expected intricacies or pleasures that implies. What is especially gratifying though is how he carries that on, how far he takes it, just in terms of allowing the baroque technique to dominate and overwhelm everything else. The film becomes very much about that then, redirecting our perception of what this is. And what it is ultimately is De Palma's most thoroughgoing ode to cinema and the grandiosity of cinema with all the heightened outrageousness and pathos of which it is capable. This is not just in his characteristically wild and improbable narrative but in the elegant way he laces random seeming details throughout to reinforce the idea of the glorious dream of cinema (e.g. the identical twin's suicide, the return to that at the end and its re-framing of the entire narrative with the dream allowed to become the reality, the contorted yet somehow graceful logic that allows for the Banderas character's reappearance after seven years, the Déjà Vue posters, etc.). Femme Fatale also rather amusingly foreshadows Southland Tales by flashing ahead a few years to 2008.

I don't know if Rebecca Romijn is a particularly good actress but she's great in this, perfectly cast, and much of that has everything to do with the cypher-like void she carries around, her capacity to be anyone to everyone, the blank cinema screen upon which both fantasies and threats are projected and sometimes fantasies as threats or vice versa. He physical stature is also critical, towering as she does over virtually everyone, exerting power through pure presence. Her flitting in and out of character and persona, submissive or dominant, is a riff on not just familiar terrain of course but also fundamental, foundational terrain for genre within cinema. It's a concentration upon the establishment of a form and its multiple applicability. It would be interesting to get more up-to-date takes on this picture and specifically its sexual politics. The strip tease scene here is genuinely erotic in a soft core porn sense but disconcertingly so in the way it's staged with the male characters very much diminished within the frame or reduced to background. It's a porn fantasy in which the objectified female well and truly becomes aggressively dominant and powerful, to the point of overwhelming the male spectator and dictating the action (add this to the on point virtual emasculation she performs upon Banderas, an otherwise stalwart symbol of male virility and authority). Romijn's character is finally capable of being reached but even that is heavily predicated upon the dream of her own death (summarized in an appropriate spin on Serrano's Piss Christ crucifixion imagery). We are not to forget what else she is capable of, what else she is.

Picture then has a bizarrely happy ending of sorts, though it ain't that happy for the truck driver character. He still accidentally causes someone's death. We may be more okay with who that is in the final scenario but that's just a reflection back upon us. We are complicit as well and just as capable of morally relativistic value judgments as the movie's morally ambiguous, if not amoral, pro/antagonist.

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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#42 Post by Aunt Peg » Tue Mar 01, 2022 6:38 am

I'll never understand what a cat was doing in the women's toilet at a film screening at the Cannes Film Festival, but what the hell it is one of De Palma's great set pieces.

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knives
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#43 Post by knives » Tue Mar 01, 2022 7:56 am

I think Redacted was quite great.

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Randall Maysin Again
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#44 Post by Randall Maysin Again » Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:43 am

Aunt Peg wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 6:38 am
I'll never understand what a cat was doing in the women's toilet at a film screening at the Cannes Film Festival, but what the hell it is one of De Palma's great set pieces.
Good point. For me the most bizarre detail was, why was Erik Ebouaney wearing the same outfit, complete with copious blood, seven years after the heist when he gets out of prison???

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senseabove
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#45 Post by senseabove » Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:31 pm

Isn't that just the movie trope of "when you get out you put on what you had on when you came in"?

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Matt
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#46 Post by Matt » Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:56 pm

I’m on the side of Romijn’s performance being quite good and appropriate to the material. And I agree she was a far better Mystique in her X-men films than Jennifer Lawrence and had wonderful chemistry with Ian McKellan’s Magneto. Lawrence and Fassbender, in comparison, come off like a couple of tree stumps, totally unaware of the expressive potential of their bodies.

She was also superb in the short-lived WB series Pepper Dennis with another “she can’t possibly be any good” model-turned-actress Brooke Burns as her sister. The show itself wasn’t consistently funny, but their scenes together often had the crackling energy of a snappy screwball comedy.

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domino harvey
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#47 Post by domino harvey » Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:28 pm

I want it stated for the record that I am right and everyone else here is wrong. History will vindicate me from this madness

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Matt
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Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#48 Post by Matt » Tue Mar 01, 2022 11:36 pm

Given how it was treated by its distributor in its initial release and since, I’m sure the film will fade into obscurity once everyone who was alive to see it in 2002 is dead. As much as I enjoy it, it feels like a “you had to be there” kind of movie and not something future generations are going to rediscover. Will it even make sense to anyone not already familiar with ‘90s erotic thrillers and the ‘00s heist movie craze? Can it be appreciated if you don’t know it primarily as a triumphant return to form—a REAL De Palma film—after the dire, seemingly career-ending folly of Mission to Mars?

Which reminds me, 2000 was a hell of a year for sci-fi flops, huh? Mission to Mars, Red Planet, Battlefield Earth, Supernova, Titan A.E., What Planet Are You From?

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knives
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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#49 Post by knives » Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:48 am

I wasn’t there and love it. Streaming as well seems to have given it a second life.

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Re: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

#50 Post by cdnchris » Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:55 am

I accidentally found out about the ending during its release and it turned me off so much I've never bothered with the film, despite liking a lot of De Palma's stuff. But Domino's disgust and everything else here is pushing me to pick this one up. A curse upon all of you if it is not as good or bad as anyone here suggests.

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