Reflet dans un diamant mort

John is 70 years old and lives in solitary luxury in a grand hotel on the Côte d’Azur. He becomes intrigued by the woman in the room next door who reminds him of his wild years on the Riviera in the 1960s, back when he was a debonair international spy. But when the woman mysteriously disappears, John is beset by flashbacks – or perhaps fantasies – of his glamorous and grotesque past, and the alluring women and dastardly villains who lived and died there. With imagery that pays affectionate homage to the 1960s Eurospy genre and is tinged with playful gore, John’s reality becomes fragmented as he seeks to unravel the puzzle of his past. Are there yet more conspiracies and treacheries waiting to be unmasked? Or has he simply been bewitched by the beautiful and dangerous lure of escapist cinema itself? (Berlinale)