Scended scents and moving movies Part 1
Yeap, movies and their olfactory assocciations. Any of you reading my blog should have seen it coming. For the rest, I hope you'll have a good time reading it, just as I enjoyed making it.
Who has not placed her/himself in an anti-hero's shoes? Who has not fallen in love with a movie character? Who has not been jealous of the audacity of a villain? Who has not searched for a song (s)he heard in a movie? Finally, who has not wondered how any of the above (songs included) would smell like? Sometimes is how I imagine they'd smell like and sometimes is what I think they'd personally choose. Sometimes is how I perceive their souls would smell like and sometimes what their surroundings would waft.
I don't consider myself a cinephile, but rather an enthusiastic movie watcher. Movies are not good only when they kick-start endless existentialistic debates, they're also good when they're just fun. To tell the truth, I consider the term "cinephile" a little snobbish, just like the discrimination between intelligentsia and common sense. Does anyone really need a board of sages to understand that jumping from a ship mid-ocean might be a statement of freedom, but not the wisest one to make? To me it's the same discrimination between old and new fragrances. The difference is that I don't blame or scold anyone if (s)he likes The Fast and the Furious 7 more than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
My interpretation of the listed films or their characters is by no way axiomatically right. It's always possible that I might be talking bollocks or that I got it all wrong. So please don't hurry in buying my proposed scents if you want to smell like the heroine or the hero of the movie.
There may be some minor spoilers included, so I apologise beforehand about them. Apologies also for the frequent use of "the most..." and "the best...", but there was no other way. Since movies are both about hypothesis and hyperthesis, the exaggerated use of superlatives was a necessary evil.
Under no circumstances I'd fancy myself as a critic or expert. I'm just collocating movies I've greatly enjoyed, even if some of them mopped the floor with me. It's all there. Art flicks, action flicks, adrenaline shots, guilty pleasures, blockbusters, odes and epodes. No holds barred and no pretentious arsy-craftsy deliriums.
Of course, if I was to include every movie I enjoyed and write all my feelings about it, the terrabytes of my laptop wouldn't stand a chance. So I've managed to cut my list down to 50, feeling bad for the ones that didn't make it. As usually I chose 25 heroines and 25 heros to keep my blog democratic. I decided to present them in five parts, cause even I wouldn't be able to read an article about 50 movies in one take, despite my love for the silver screen. So, here's the first one.
Tragic. Shattered. Every turn leading to a dead end. The downward spiral of decency in exchange of artificial paradises, of the kind made in chemistry labs. Marion lost and desperate, begging over the phone for someone to stand by her side, is perhaps the strongest and most harrowing distress signal ever filmed. The most disturbing thing however, is not how low she would go, but how many men would be more than eager to take advantage of her in every way. Trust me, I've run a poll about it and the results were scary. Let's not forget the haunting soundtrack, which is impossible to unhear. Happy is just another substitute for what she really wishes for. An illusion of happiness within her reach, consoling her for the helpful hands that are cut and lost forever.
This epic tale of rise and fall is full of "The most, the best, the greatest" cases. The most intense stare I've ever seen in a movie. It's by far the best ganster movie I've ever seen (sorry about that Mr.Scorcese), and one of the greatest performances of all time by a phenomenal Al Pacino. The legendary last stand scene still has me wondering why he had to wait 10 more years for his only to date Academy Award. Montana Parfum d'Homme, besides having the same name with Tony and the humid tobacco and boozy notes reminiscing of the exotic Cuban streets where he comes from, is also a fragrance large enough to be the towering pedestal for a man whose motto was "The world is yours".
France ready to explode, just before one of the most poetic moments in post-war European history. Living in a dreamworld, while the real world is falling apart will always be a short-lived, if not stillborn, escapism. The only incarnation of Venus de Milo which possibly exceeds the archetype in terms of pulchritude. And the background of a Parisian appartment fits her bohemian mind much more than the Louvre. I love the way smoking her Sobranie Cocktails hints the slow burning of her rainbow soul to ashes. Rive Gauche was always the place in Paris for dreamers to frequent, so the choice here was obvious.
Hollywood should realy take lessons from Korean (and Japanese to some extent) cinema instead of making blant remakes of its movies. Unique directing, amazing photography, stunning performances and wonderful scores. The best thriller I've seen in years, keeping me for two hours at the edge of my seat. And I've seen hundreds of them. Violent, chilling and conquering, it nearly made me to restart biting my nails after 35 years. Just like the mystery woven around what Basala and its fiery composure really means, the answer to whether revenge leaves someone hollower than before is not answered here. Or is it?
A bittersweet study in alienation, even between family members. Only in this case the supposed black sheep of the family is in fact the most colourful of them all. A chain of everyday events, climaxing to a heartwarming redemption, and showing that almost perfect strangers are sometimes the shoulder you're looking for. Not to cry on, but to cover your back, when the ones who were supposed to be your refugee were not so surprisingly cold. April is the heart of spring, battling with the gloom of winter. So, a fragrance with a funny name and bottle and a funky (in its positive meaning) smell is everything this secretly embittered girl is all about.
Somehow egotistical, as it speaks about the psychic chaos and the grief of a man who has achieved an enviable status that 99,99% of people will never reach. But fame and money are not axiomatically a ticket to happiness. So, what Pink really experiences here is the loneliness of having everything but having nothing. A piercing gaze at the ugly side of mankind's face, both as a whole and individually. The same titled LP is the ultimate album in rock history to me, and I still can't watch the movie without shedding a tear, although I've seen it over a hundred times. So Opium, my ultimate fragrance; the one to induce intoxicating and hallucinating addictions, the one which can both exorcise and summon evil, and the one with the most musical perfume notes.
A blithesome girl, way more capable with a wrench than with any kind of cosmetics. Although usually begrimed with oil and dirt, she hides a sparkling clean, beautiful heart under her overalls, bringing a breath of fresh air in a place where air is absent for approximately four billion years. Being a strange mix of space western and steampunk, Serenity is my favourite "fists and laser blasts" Sci-Fi movie. The old spaceship she keeps functioning is the vessel I'd choose hands down to travel through space, and Kaylee, although the least impressive and feminine crew member, is the one I'd certainly fall in love with. Metal would be the perfect scent for her space antics, having its name used as a facade to hide behind its toughness, but a very romantic and flowery heart deep inside.
Being a huge fan of the comic during the '80s, I was utterly disappointed by the 1995 movie version, where an otherwise congenial Sylvester Stallone didn't stood against the screenwriters' falderals and ruined the Dredd Mythos. As if Dredd dawdling for most of the movie without his helmet was not enough, they also managed to include a love story in the flick. Thanks God for Karl Urban and his perfect portraying of the legendary character. Having your face half-covered for the entire movie is surely an indication of having guts. My love for every subgenre of Sci-Fi must also be the reason why I enjoy reading about a dystopic and authoritarian society, which in my real life would be rejected with no second thoughts. Since there's no escape from the strong arm of the law in the end, vintage Fahrenheit's stifling presence would be an undeniable sign that this arm has already reached you.
A true believer of "Live fast, die young". Going from modelling to bounty hunting is a rather bizarre switch of careers to say the least. Especially when graduating and working as a sound engineer, EMT and firefighter were her in-between steps. But who said Domino was an ordinary woman? Is Domino an ordinary name to begin with? I guess that her friends were never bored when around her, since "With her English accent they think she's some lost tourist until she arrests them." must have been quite an amusement. It's an irony that she died a few weeks before the movie was released. But on the other hand, maybe it was better that she never saw it, since she had huge objections about the liberties taken with her depiction, the portraying of her being purely heterosexual when she wasn't being a major one. I think that a fragrance with tons of "don't mess with me" personality, named after another helluva notorious tough cookie like Calamity Jane, is what fits her the best.
Like a space age viking with a rather ambitious agendum, plundering the cosmos. The most recognisable breathing in movie history, and the meanest and most disturbing lightsaber colour in the universe. I used to admire him as a kid, cause something deep inside was telling me that he wasn't what he looked like. Now I simply adore him, for he carries every merit and flaw of human nature under his shiny panoply. Drakkar Noir is oily enough to match his slippery ways and pitch black to match his looks and frame of mind. If any force (of the "May the Force be with you." kind) is included in the scenes where he remotedly chokes his subordinates, it's perhaps the force of vintage Drakkar Noir suffocating them.
End of Part 1
GothicHeart