I was engaged in a short-lived discussion last night with my fiancé. Wait, perhaps I should back up. Monday night I was engaged in a movie which led to a short-lived discussion with my fiancé. The movie was “Perfume”, based on a highly celebrated novel about a man in 17th century France who wished to preserve the scent of women. Okay, my fiancé adored this book and claimed to have read it no less than five times. I have never read the book but have observed his copy on one of our many bookshelves. In the end he asked me what I thought of the movie. I said I found it disturbing. I didn’t get to explain much about why I found it disturbing. I managed to get out- he murdered women to preserve their scent (disturbing), that the movie portrayed a murderer of women with an overtly sympathetic eye and a disturbing amount of sanity…(the movie made it appear that the lead character wasn’t really doing anything insane or wrong at all) I didn’t get much further. It was my comment about the murdered women all being virgins, that lead him to believe my opinion was a defensive reaction, which in some way it was. I despise the whole virgin prizing. I think it’s sick. It’s just another way for men to control women. Controlling ones sexuality is to control ones very nature and freedom… oppression… anyway, we all know this. I get sick of seeing it all the time. This movie/book/piece of art, expresses that virginity is a prize, in fact a state of heavenliness… I don’t wish to spoil the ending of the movie for anyone, but if you watch the ending you will know exactly what I mean.
The thing is.. I really loved how the movie was filmed. The colouring of the shots in squallier has a blue/grey quality to impress upon the dismal existence one would lead in Paris… I can only guess. But I didn’t like the way the story was told. As if the lead character were not a completely insane beast. It was kinda fairy tale like. It was kinda.. love story like… It was pretty disturbing. I dunno, I guess the thing is, we often see movies where the lead character victimizes women yet is painted in a sympathetic light. Can you think of a movie that does this with a female character victimizing a male?
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1 comment:
saw Perfume recently, it was well done in general, good character building, i agree that it had effectively dismal cinematography... says a lot about human nature as well.
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