Perfumes

Not to be confused with Perfume: The Story of a Murderer from 2006 (based on the fine novel by Patrick Süskind), this is a charming little tale about bravery, acceptance and empathy. Oh, and smell of course. The 'nose' in the film is Anne Walberg, played with many blends by the great Emmanuelle Devos. She's a professional scent-maker, whose career at the top table has dried up (for reasons best kept under wraps) and is now hawking her nasal talents to factories trying to mask their emissions, or brand companies with bag odour issues. A chauffer, Guillaume, played by Grégory Montel, is tasked with driving her to and from these gigs and, after initial friction, a respect and a friendship develop.

It reminded me of The Intouchables, from 2011, a film widely lauded by most folk except me. As in that cliché-ridden film, Perfumes throws together two seemingly ill-matched characters and watches as they slowly wear down barriers between one another. There's a nice, platonic chemistry going on here, both Devos and Montel seem really comfortable in their roles. Guillaume has a daughter, Léa (Zelie Rixhon) that he's trying desperately to connect with, and Sergi López pops in for a sweetly awkward cameo.

Highlight: Guillaume tells Anne he used to love the smell of mown lawn. Anne tells him the grass attempts to protect itself from insects by releasing an enzyme that attracts other, bigger insects to eat the smaller ones. That smell of cut grass is 'the smell of carnage'.

I'm planning to whizz through a couple of these as I'm a bit film-jammed this month (and probably next), so I'll finish by saying for someone whose olfactory sense is perhaps my greatest sense, this film was a pleasant little aroma.

Perfumes opens on July 1st at Palace Cinemas and the Luna Cinemas.

See also:

The above-mentioned Perfume (2006), directed by Tom Tykwer (though the book is better) and probably Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman (1992) - it's Pacino with the whole 'Hoo-ahh!' shit, but the perfume angle works here.