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"America is a country very big, no?"

It's impossible to say whether Femme Fatale is straightforward Brian De Palma, or whether it's De Palma parodying himself. Mission to Mars notwithstanding, the guy is one of the most tongue-in-cheek filmmakers around, what with schlock like Body Double and Raising Cain interspersed among veritable masterpieces like Carrie and Scarface. Here, he adds a touch of David Lynch to his all-stops-out visual orgy formula and comes up with a sort of half-assed Mulholland Drive. Hey, I'll take a half-assed Mulholland Drive anytime.

De Palma begins, as he is wont to do, with a long, unbroken take; this time, it is of a mysterious woman (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) watching an old film noir in a Paris hotel room and being interrupted by a large gentleman who insists on discussing their plans for the evening. And what plans, too: the scene is followed by a tremendous set piece in which a ten million dollar diamond-encrusted "dress" (for lack of a better word) is stolen amid some vivacious lesbian sex and distinctly Bondish gadgetry.

It is seven years later, and Laure Ash, for that is her name, has married an obscenely wealthy US Ambassador to France and spends most of her time strenuously concealing her identity for fear that the thugs who became disgruntled when she made off with that damn diamond bra will come after her if they find her. She is none too delighted, then, when a would-be paparazzi named Nicolas (Antonio Banderas) snaps her picture and sells it to the press.

I can't describe the rest of the story without a) scaring you away from the movie and b) having you think me insane for recommending such apparent tripe. Suffice it to say that this is one of the loopiest films in recent months, with a plot that doesn't double back on itself so much as it makes fun of movies with plots that double back on themselves. I can already hear the scoffs that will surely accompany the film's delirious ending, but I can't understand how some (intelligent, astute) people are actually taking it seriously.

Jarringly odd camerawork is De Palma's best calling card, and Femme Fatale certainly makes the most of it, with its dizzying point-of-views, bizarre tracking shots and that damn split-screen he is so enamored with; seriously, as fond as I am of the director's style, this film has some of the most pointless use of split-screen I have seen this side of Mike Figgis. But even that is, I think, an entirely self-conscious attempt at subtle parody.

There's some great sex, lesbian, heterosexual, what have you. Romijn-Stamos's performance gives yet another clue to the film's knowing ridiculousness; she is the cliche of "seductive," at one point doing an impromptu strip tease in the basement of a pool hall. This, of course, is after she strips a supermodel in a bathroom stall while a cohort greedily picks up the pieces.

There's more. The "surprise" plot twist exists to mock surprise twists, and what follows makes absolutely no sense but is fun in a jaw-to-the-floor sort of way. I can't say that I've figured the movie out, but to cover my ass I'll propound that maybe it wasn't made to be figured out, working as a satire of the reputed inscrutability of Mulholland Drive and the like. Yeah... that's it.

I'm not sure how much more I can write without repeating myself. Perhaps it is already too late. Femme Fatale is complete schlock, no doubt, but it knows it's schlock, and it's directed with typical flair by the suddenly mischievous De Palma, and acted with tongue-in-cheek ferociousness by an intimidatingly gorgeous Romijn-Stamos, who didn't even look better in a rubber blue suit in X-Men. I don't know if this is a Lynch satire or just a piss-poor imitation, but it's spectacularly funny either way.