FEMME FATALE
"One of the smartest, most pleasurable expressions of pure movie love
to come from an American director in years.... it feels and plays
like the work of an artist newly born...Freed from the constraints
of censorship that kept Hitchcock's obsessions sublimated, De Palma
doesn't need to obscure his fascination with sex and violence under
the cloak of art or propriety...not since Sissy Spacek burned up the
screen in 'Carrie' has a De Palma woman held the screen as forcefully
as Romijn-Stamos...There isn't a single wasted or empty shot in the
film; everything counts." -- Manohla
Dargis, The Los Angeles Times
"... a reminder that there is sometimes more to movies than character
and story, that formal dexterity and visual inventiveness (along with
a good score, in this case by Ryuichi Sakamoto) and some nice-looking
people can be the vehicles of exhilaration and surprise...More than
a quarter-century after 'Obsession,' his feverish tribute to 'Vertigo,'
Mr. De Palma is still worshiping at the shrine of Hitchcock, as well
as indulging in a good deal of auto-homage...The story, to the extent
that it is comprehensible, is pretentious and banal...But Mr. De Palma
proves that, in the absence of insight or ideas, some amazing things
are possible...It is possible, for instance, to be entranced by a
movie without believing it for a second." --A.O.
Scott, The New York Times
"This is pure filmmaking, elegant and slippery. I haven't had as much
fun second-guessing a movie since 'Mulholland Drive'...Romijn-Stamos
may or may not be a great actress, but in 'Femme Fatale,' she is a
great Hitchcock heroine--blond, icy, desirable, duplicitous--with
a knack for contemptuously manipulating the hero...She is also very
sexy, and let it be said that De Palma, at least, has not followed
other directors into a sheepish retreat from nudity, seduction, desire
and erotic wordplay." -- Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times
"'Femme Fatale' is sexy, witty, energetic and gorgeous, but it is
as stripped of the human element (in some of its production design,
as well) as a minimalist Calvin Klein store...The movie reprises many
of De Palma's favorite themes--mainly body doubles and voyeurism,
both of which are put through some alternate-reality permutations
that bog things down rather than revving them up for the finale...'Femme
Fatale' is an exercise in style over substance, which, in the end,
is what De Palma is all about. He renders the frivolous fantastic,
and occasionally ludicrous." --Jami
Bernard, The New York Daily News
"... so chockablock with his career-long obsessions that it really
should be retitled De Palma's Greatest Hits...The robbery scene recaps
'Mission: Impossible,' the peekaboo carnality recalls 'Dressed to
Kill' and 'Body Double,' the night-world fantasias resemble 'The Fury'...yet
'Femme Fatale' doesn't really seem like a retread; its elements may
be intentionally self-referential, but the overall effect is more
voluptuously romantic than in De Palma's other films...it's a pure
(guilty) pleasure trip. That's pleasure, De Palma-style--twisted,
dirty, voyeuristic, a vast glissando of amorality." -- Peter
Rainer, New York
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