Smell objectification in Perfume

I really enjoyed Tom Tykwer's sensual masterpiece, Perfume(2006). The film is visually ravishing in both a grotesque and genuinely beautiful manner. Of course, one cannot help, but document Tykwer's attempt to convey smell through the celluloid as one of a kind. Ideologically, the film renders an interesting shift of the typical gazesque interpretation of female objectification. It is true that the women are very much objectified visually, by the camera as normal in mainstream cinema, but the sense of smell and the ways sound are incorporated in the cinematic act of smelling in this film are equally, as pedestal placing.

The act of smelling in Perfume is one which comes to be greatly more sensual for the films protagonist than sight. This is an interesting chiding since smell is not exactly the dominate cinematic sense, and smell-o-vision is generally considered a flop. Tykwer does a masterful job of portraying visually smells. He does it by almost using montage editing between lush, beautiful smelled objects, and pristine flaring nostrils. Adding to the experience is the nearly constant audio trope of sniffing. These things combine make you notice every time you sniff during and after the film.

With this in mind, it seems that the way in which women are often the target of smell in Perfume provides a different perspective on objectification. In Berardinelli's review of Perfume he talks about the sexual metaphor brought forward by the film. All the women murdered were virgins (except the prostitute),and they were in no way sexually abused. However none the less something is taken from them. Their essence is stolen. Berardinelli, puts it well, "Jean-Baptiste's crimes are rape and murder, although his raping occurs not through penetration but through distillation ". The protagonist in steeling these women's essences reveals something interesting. A concept, that smell is another social/cultural method by which objectification occurs. Smell objectification demands that there is a normative scent, a stereotypical odor of woman. Even the timeless saying, girls are made of sugar, spice, and everything nice, possibly notes an aromatic aspect of the ideal woman.

Perfume is interesting then, because of a smell dichotomy. On one level Jean-Baptiste, very much idolizes or this normative notion of femininity through odor, but on another level the manner and reality of the smelling boasts something different. Women, smelled by the protagonist are smelled, in well, malodorous regions. Also, being that the film takes place in the hardly sanitary eighteenth century does not suggest an ideal cultural, notion of female smell. yet, what is comparative to their virginity, their essence is stolen.

A look at technology vs. nature through The Host

Friday night, I got the unique experience of seeing Joon-ho Bong's, highly praised monster movie, The Host. It received standing ovations from Film Threat, The New Yorker, and Entertainment Weekly for its originality and family-core based struggle. However, because monster movies illustrate so well the relationship between human, nature, and technology, anytime I see one, I can not help but consider environmental ramifications. The Host has several interesting themes dealing with the strife between technology and nature.

The first lies within the spawning of the monster. Here is clearly demonstrated the chiding of humankind's creation with nature. The act of chemical pollution is directly linked to the widespread socially instilled notions of humanity conquesting the land. The logic, often of big business, that nature is waste, or something to be regarded as either expendable or extractable(harvestable). This is a key element of the Marxian land ethic, which is a keystone of historical materialism. I don't know whether or not the scientist portrayed as American in the first few scenes of the film( and then throughout ) is just being portrayed as stupid, or if this is a comment on an activity / mentality which is far more widespread.

The second is the attitude taken towards the monster after it has been created. It is typically discussed in context of a sociological term, othering. The monster is othered in that its existence is deemed, "unnatural", and because of the notion that humans are natural, stigmatizing things that are unnatural builds security in our own identity, as natural. It is possible that others would make the claim that people only respond to the generally violent tendencies of these monsters, but one must take into account the fact that no monster created in any works of this genre could be allowed to live. Even in such works as King Kong and Godzilla where certain characters wind up with an apathetic viewpoint towards the monster. This internal dialog of supremacy through self affirmation is intrinsically woven into the Western notion of nature, and is also very importantly tied in with the mainstream view of our place in nature. Nature is something which we can "return to" because we are in fact natural.

The third and final theme is the notion of techno-transcendence introduced by Marvin Harris. This is a derivative of techno-utopianism. It is the Western notion that that salvation can always be found through a technological revolution. Centrally important to this is Harris' notion of intensification. In this case technology and society intensify to the point that a monster is spawned, and then technology is invoked to save the day, Agent Yellow. However, The Host is specifically unique in that it has a very interesting portrayal of this transcendence's effect. All the imagery of people bleeding profusely because of the gas, leads us to wonder if in fact technology has failed us. Inevitably, intensification demands that technology come with a hardwired price tag. Either, technology succeeds, and we live with the side effects, one of which is growing intensification, or technology fails, and the system gets slack. The Host shows a situation where technology fails and we must deal with the ramifications, a bloody fight to the end.

Welcome to Cenobitic Voyeurism

Here is my blog for Film Criticism. The title comes from the word Cenobite or Cenobitic meaning: "...a monastic tradition that stresses community life..."¹, and Voyeur or Voyeurism:"...a practice in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from observing other people."² Chance the Gardener (Peter Sellers) said in Being There (1979), "I like to watch." Film is about indulging in our inner most tendencies to live out other's lives through the gaze. Film is also about community, a culturally established pastime. Therefore film is an experience we watch together.