Watching Brian De Palma being routinely, willfully, even spitefully dismissed by middlebrow critics all of my adult life is something I’ve never gotten used to. Looking forward to each new film and trekking to see it is a solemn ritual for me. Seeing how he chooses to use the tools of cinema in each project is akin to experiencing a symphony or work of architecture by the greatest masters of their respective art forms. De Palma is such a master for a very simple reason; his films are cinematic. Most movies are fast food; his are gourmet meals. Even after a dozen or more viewings, they can provide new insights and thrills, and if not that, still tantalize the viewer with hypnotic visuals in a way that intensifies over time rather than dwindles. Femme Fatale was a financial failure and earned withering critical attacks, which, as I always say, is an indication of popular taste more than artistic merit. This is sad because the film happens to be one of De Palma’s most flawless masterpieces, on par with Dressed to Kill and Carlito’s Way. The plot is familiar, inscrutable, and irrelevant. Momentous as it sounds, what the film is really about is nothing less than the eternal artistic struggle; the striving to use mechanical means to reflect on life and humanity. Ironically, De Palma’s films are often described as icy and unemotional, and yet so many of them are structured around head-on depictions of the most mysterious aspects of human nature; violence, sex and dreams. Going back to his very first, little-seen, experimental feature, Murder a la Mod, and continuing through Sisters, Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, Raising Cain, Femme Fatale and Passion, characters wake up from nightmares so many times, sometimes to comical excess, that it is never easy to be certain what level of reality the story is in, if any. This makes it pointless to try and outline the plots. Meanwhile, the surface of the films are interconnected set-pieces that show off De Palma’s passion for the cinematic medium. Bisected frames – whether split-screen, deep focus via split diopters, or simple but arresting composition – are the most common visual motif in De Palma, symbolizing the dual nature of man, the carnal and the spiritual; the heights of achievement made possible by technology contrasted with the persistent pull of the temporal and irrational. Femme Fatale is a tour-de-force of pure cinema. Fit into the mosaic of all his top-tier films, it’s part of a rigorous career-long meditation on the art form.
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