FEMME FATALE (2002/DVD/WS) DVD

Femme Fatale
Brian De Palma blends the emotional netherworld of film noir with a stylish portrayal of life among the wealthy and powerful in Paris in this glossy Thriller. Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) is a beautiful but mysterious woman who has aligned herself with a small ring of jewel thieves, led by a man known as Black Tie (Eriq Ebouaney), who has planned a major score during the Cannes Film Festival. Sexy model Veronica (Rie Rasmussen) is scheduled to make a spectacular entrance for the screening of director Regis Wargnier's picture, wearing a body-hugging piece of jewelry worth a cool ten million dollars. Laure approaches the sexually adventurous Veronica and is able to seduce her, while at the same time stealing her diamond-studded outfit and replacing it with a carefully constructed counterfeit. Veronica, however, also makes off the loot without giving her partners their cut, and must go into hiding in order to avoid the wrath of Black Tie and his cohorts. Fate allows Laure to make her way to the United States, where in time she marries a powerful politician. Photographer Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas), however, had snapped a picture of Laure while she was on the lam years before, and when he takes an assignment to get a photo of the camera-shy woman, Laure realizes Nicolas is in a position to reveal her new identity to the world -- and put the bloodthirsty Black Tie back on her trail. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cast Rebecca Romijn as Laure Ash Antonio Banderas as Nicolas Bardo Peter Coyote as Bruce Hewitt Watts Eriq Ebouaney as Black Tie Edouard Montoute as Racine Rie Rasmussen as Veronica Thierry Frémont as Serra

Crew Denis Renault - Art Director Chris Soldo - Associate Producer Olivier Beriot - Costume Designer Dominique Delany - First Assistant Director Jerome Borenstein - First Assistant Director Brian De Palma - Director Bill Pankow - Editor Mark Lombardo - Executive Producer Ryuichi Sakamoto - Composer (Music Score) Anne Pritchard - Production Designer Thierry Arbogast - Cinematographer Tarak Ben Ammar - Producer Marina Gefter - Producer Francoise Benoit-Fresco - Set Designer Francois Groult - Sound/Sound Designer Jean-Paul Mugel - Sound/Sound Designer Brian De Palma - Screenwriter

Femme Fatale
Heralded by many as a return to form for director Brian De Palma, Femme Fatale almost feels like a career summation for the master stylist. Although it barely registered at the box office, this tawdry piece of oir revisionism is actually nifty entertainment -- tricky, engrossing, and just short of profound. The gorgeous Rebecca Romijn-Stamos does double duty in the title role, playing both a jewel thief and her unlikely doppelganger. As that description indicates, the plot is not a little outlandish -- which is fine by De Palma. The maverick director uses the narrative as little more than a springboard to elaborate on his formal and thematic obsessions. The movie is a delirious hodgepodge of De Palma tropes: split screens, doubles, voyeurs, and graceful tracking shots abound. At once employing and exploding the clichés of film noir, De Palma skirts dangerously close to self-parody. Based on a script the director penned himself, it's sometimes hard to tell whether the movie -- packed with hokey twists and risible argot -- apes bad hrillers or unintentionally plays like one. Like De Palma's most personal movies, Femme Fatale is unabashedly overheated and overwrought. Like his most successful movies, however, the hysteria is thrilling -- it gives the film its oneiric power. Femme Fatale will draw comparisons with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, another dreamlike movie with which it shares certain themes. Less subtle than Lynch's movie, Femme Fatale is like its trashier, no-good cousin: certainly less transcendent, but perhaps more fun. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
 

(no awards)

General Specifications: Language Options: English, French Subtitle Options: English, French, Spanish Sound Processing: DD5.1: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel Additional Features: cc Get voyeuristic and take 3 tantalizing peeks at the filmmaking process with the stars, director and more: from dream to reality, dream within a dream and Femme Fatale: behind the scenes Femme Fatale: dressed to Kill montage North American and French theatrical trailers Interactive menus Cast/director film highlights Scene access Languages: English & Français (Dubbed in Quebec) Subtitles: English, Français & Español MPAA Rating: R DVD Discs Included: 1 DVD Sides: 1 DVD DVD Region Code: 1 Content Length: 114 min   DVD Chapters: Side #1 -- 1. Men and Blondes 2. Key Players 3. Bait and Switch 4. Code Red 5. Double-Cross 6. Gotcha! 7. Dropout from Room 214 8. Lily's World 9. Damsel in Despair 10. Fellow Traveler 11. Bardo's Assignment 12. Missions of Menace 13. Pushed Toward Death 14. Hidden Pursuits 15. Her Visitor 16. Stay With Me 17. The Set-Up 18. Mystery Buff 19. Smart Guy's Dilemma 20. Bad Girl 21. Biker Bar 22. Dance for Napoleon 23. Patsy's Choice 24. Wake Up Before You Die 25. Telling Her Future 26. Gift to a Daughter 27. Switch Upon Switch 28. Pushed from Death 29. Only in My Dreams; End Credits