The Perfume of Yvonne (1994)

So much average

Sadly Over-hyped

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

If I would have the choice to take only one movie with me on the famous lonely island I would take this one. The director Leconte succeed to show what's really about in a relationship between a man and a woman. And that 's very difficult to show, very difficult.And the beautiful actors, scene, Music ( Bach, Aznavour etc.)To my mind it's not necessary to know from where the acting people are coming, and to be honest, after watching this movie more than twenty times for example I still don't know in which things Dr. Rene Meinthe is involved. The film shows the morbidity and noblesse in those times simply wonderful.It's a little bit different from the novel but that doesn't matter. So enjoy. And of course it's a french one. Or does anyone of you really believe that you can make an erotic or at least a love scene between Britt Pit and Angela Dohle, that would look alike a frog is kissing an Allien. But that'a different thing.

What can you say about a film by a leading director that flopped at the box office and whose leading lady was never heard from again (shades of Les Portes de la nuit and Nathalie Nattier) yet has drawn a half dozen sympathetic comments on this very board. For me the twin selling points were Patrice Leconte and Jean-Pierre Marielle and neither let me down. A friend in France whose judgment I value warned me against it and although I could see where she was coming from I'm still glad I saw it. In some respects Leconte has produced the ultimate valentine to lost love and shot it in a hazy, wistful, slightly unreal style the way we tend to remember lost time. The handful of linking scenes featuring the narrator looking back to 1958 are shot in stark, sombre tones contrasting wildly with the pastel palette of the flashbacks set in and around Lake Geneva. The dreamlike quality is present from the start; in a dream there are no formal introductions or elaborate establishing of relationships, they are just there, you meet someone and instantly know them or know all you want or need to know to fall in love. As others have said on this board Leconte withholds information about all the three principals but even with a story as leisurely paced as this one we don't really care. The eroticism whilst more blatant than in say, The Hairdresser's Husband, is still light years short of being even soft porn but is in keeping with the dreamlike quality throughout. On balance a fine film which did not deserve its neglect.

'"Le Parfum d'Yvonne", it's famous, every one knows it.' A then 23-year-old Swiss girl told me very excitedly when we so by chance stayed in the same drab pension at the Moslem Quarter in Old Jerusalem City in Jerusalem, Israel. That was 1994 and so I watched this movie in Vevey when I went to visit her later in 1995. Yes, entertaining and erotic to some extent. Changes from the original book are largely on the age of the characters like Victor is 18 in the book but a 30+ in the movie.Its attractions are apparent: 1) Switzerland is famous for its natural beauty 2) young pretty sexy starlet who dares to undress in a sensuous way. She once takes off her brief panties at the pier of Lake Geneva and gives it to Victor as a gift 3) the story is told in flashback, perhaps in the early 60's where the actual incident takes place in 1958, nostalgia is always a hit to Europeans 4) tantalizing and sensuous love scene between Yvonne and Victor 5) the mysteries of Yvonne, Victor and homosexual Dr. Rene Meinthe, their own personal stories are not known at all 6) they meet at the hall/foyer of a hotel, a dream place of men and women to meet their romance or love, immediately they start their romance in such a beautiful place 7) Unreal is the word for the atmosphere, it is a dream, Yvonne is a big secret herself, she is unreal, hard to get hold of 8) Nice music, I especially remember the older man who sings "Sa Jeunesse" in dark voice.All these are effective elements for a blockbuster movie. To me, it's a past-time entertainment without much to tell. So pitiful that Sandra Majani did not do any more filming after this one, she is really a sweet girl.

A truly beautiful film by Patrice Leconte. As usual Patrice Leconte provides us with a magnificent blend of a fine cast (a memorable performance by Jean-Pierre Marielle as Dr. Rene Meinthe), beautiful music and photography and a captivating story. A film less known than Patrice Leconte's "Le mari de la coiffeuse" but equally enjoyable.