Review in Brief: Femme fatale

Tonight I will be watching the latest Brian De Palma film, Passion, at the New York Film Festival. In preparation, I watched Femme fatale. Here's a brief review:

Femme fatale begins with a close-up of a screen playing Double Indemnity. As the camera zooms out we realize that Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn) is not only watching the screen, but perhaps also studying actress Barbara Stanwyck. This sets out a couple of the themes of the film: how we watch screens and how screens affect us. Throughout the film, people watch each other as if everyone was the star of their own movie and act as if they were a character in a movie. This is particularly true of a paparazzi photographer and artist played by Antonio Banderas who uses his acting skills to manipulate others and yet falls for one of Laure Ashe’s false, cinematic personas. De Palma’s beautifully fluid camerawork and editing communicate a lot of the story through visual cues most notably in the astounding heist sequence that takes place early in the film. De Palma’s great sense of rhythm and Ryûichi Sakamoto’s playful music make it, arguably, one of the most engrossing heist sequences in the cinema. (Brian De Palma, 2002)

TP