Review of "Perfume"

Well I’ve have never had a private cinema viewing before. The nearest I’ve come to that is some second rate film that everyone else but me has obviously read the reviews! But this time is was fun – just 4 of us reviewing “Perfume” for the Times in the 20^th Century Fox - Luca Turin, Linda Pilkington (Ormande Jayne) and Janine Roxborough Bunce (Fragrance Foundation). My cries of disapproval raised a smile when I protested that with so few people in the cinema, the Times reporter still managed to place himself directly between me and the screen!

My opinion of the film changed little on the second viewing. The book takes a lot of following and many said it would be impossible. Under the circumstances not too bad a job although some parts were still highly suspect. I always worry when I find myself laughing in places that the director intended to be highly dramatic, and the scene where the impact of Grenoulle’s perfume turns an angry mob into public sex orgy was one of them. Flashes of the Lynx advert.

Unlike the book, the film had a few technical mistakes which was a shame. Our reporter was keen to know those! There was the usual one where the process on enfleurage was depicted incorrectly with the flowers laid in the fat. Where does this myth come from? If the flowers are laid in the fat, then when they are exhausted in 2-3 days time and thrown away, you would throw away the odour laden fat too! After a couple of months there would be nothing left.

The flowers should be spread onto the clean side of the glass and the fat side is upside-down, facing but not touching the flowers in the chassis below. As the flowers give off their aroma it is passes through the trapped air and is then absorbed into the fat. It’s the whole principle of enfleurage and the reason why it can only be used with flowers that continue to create their perfume after they are picked – like Jasmin and Tuberose. In fact the yield from enfleurage is higher than by solvent extraction – demonstrating this very point.

Other technical details were the neatly trimmed rows of lavender where the arched harvester had run down the rows and forced the plants into their regimented shape – not something that would have been around at the time. You could argue about the main character. Not the image I painted in my mind after the book but…

The script was quite a let down and in places was toe-curlingly bad. It is a long time since I read the book, but I don’t remember it being that bad.

We were asked various questions about the impact the film would have, and whether it had any serious message with regard to human pheromones. Luca and I locked horns on that one when I pointed to bourgeonal as being one of the few known human pheromones (it is claimed to be given off by the female egg and has been shown to attract sperm). Granted, although it is a likely candidate, it hasn’t actually been found in the female egg yet – I mere detail! Luca said I would live to regret that statement, but we’ll see. I’ll remind him when they find it.

On the claim that the sense of smell is more emotive than other senses and the most difficult to describe, Luca’s view is that all senses are impossible to describe. We are crap at describing touch, sound and sight too, it’s just that we are more crap at describing smell. Good point. Now, better pay that penalty I incurred on the congestion charge!