I'm not usually one for putting together film reviews, so I'll leave most of the poo-pooing and discussion of camera angles, and lighting to someone else. But I did want to share some thinking about Perfume, which we watched last night. To me the best way to understand the film is to think about it in terms of mixing. The biggest problem, I think, is that it's difficult to get the mix right between magic and realism. For instance, the notion that one could derive a substance based on beauty into a distillation so powerful it would transform the vilest anger into overwhelming love is fantastic. A bit innocent, unrealistic sure, but that's the point.

The problem comes with the realism added to the mix. There is plenty of grit poured into the film--rotting fish, dank alleys, and dirty bodies are everywhere. Still, this is fine and in some ways makes the texture more compelling. But when the process through which the magical elixir is made is revealed, the result is mostly gruesome details of serial killings and processing of bodies . The realism swamps the magic and the resulting mix makes the ending ultimately unsatisfying. The magical mixing needs less presence, more mystery.

This brings me to another kind of mixing that the film also illuminates. The kind of synaesthaesia that comes from trying to represent one mode or sense through another. In this case, the film tries to portray smell through the visual. It's an ambitious goal and it keeps the film engaging. Of course, film has the advantage of also being able to layer sound into the mix. A close up of the nose, a close up of a girl's skin, the sound of inhalation, and voilà, a sense of smell. What really struck me about the film, though, was the way in which the effect can be pulled off with less than the full application of all of these elements. This came home when the scenes switched to Grasse in rural France.

 

Several years ago I checked out a book by Dennis Stock from our art library. The book, Provence Memories, could easily be the inspiration for many of the synaesthaetic rural scenes from Perfume. As I looked over the images then, I experienced the same sense of something beyond the visual. Really the images offered a transformation into the scene. I could almost feel the sunshine and inhale the scent of lavender on the breeze. (The high res images in the book are more powerful than those linked here on the Web.)

So, there's much to be had from synthesizing the senses through media. But in many ways that power comes from a blending that is subtle. The realism of Stock's images translates into visual magic that yields impressions beyond the simple scene captured in the photograph. The trick, then, and the reason to consider the film and keep on working with media, is learning to mix.