 DVD Re-Issue of the Week
The Perfume of Yvonne
(D: Patrice Leconte, 1994)
Leconte's (Monsieur Hire, Girl on the Bridge) The Perfume of Yvonne is
a tingling erotic homage to the best work of Tinto Brass, Jesus Franco
& Radley Metzger, a sumptuous period piece that dabbles in
politics, literature & art, but revels deliriously in desire. It's
intellectual pornography (ala Georges Bataille or Alberto Moravia) of the first order...
DVD Re-Issue of the Week
The Perfume of Yvonne
(D: Patrice Leconte, 1994)
Leconte's (Monsieur Hire, Girl on the Bridge) The Perfume of Yvonne is
a tingling erotic homage to the best work of Tinto Brass, Jesus Franco
& Radley Metzger, a sumptuous period piece that dabbles in
politics, literature & art, but revels deliriously in desire. It's
intellectual pornography (ala Georges Bataille or Alberto Moravia) of the first order...
Filmed in a mixture of the pellucid, sun-drenched style of 60s Italian
& French cinerotica & the dark - almost noir - style of Italian
gialli, Leconte's film delights in fetishistic surfaces, in starched
white shirts, in blowing flags, drapes & sun dresses, in the
rumpled tailored suits & scarves of European expatriates & the
mottled brown leather of well-traveled suitcases. It's so vivid you can
almost smell the blend of opium & sea brine. A lush orchestral
score cries out for Edda Dell'Orso's wordless vocals, but shimmers
gorgeously without it as well.
The story is relatively simple, though spiced with exotic mysteries
that are - wisely I think - never quite resolved. Victor, a young
Russian count adrift in Europe in 1958, living off of the intermittent
sale of rarities from his family's renowned butterfly collection
(shades of Nabokov), crosses paths with a cryptically beautiful actress
named Yvonne & her elderly, flamboyantly gay, traveling companion,
Dr. Meinthe. Jean-pierre Marielle, a veteran of 60s & early 70s
sexploitation/giallo, shines here as the world-weary doctor who drinks
his port wine with a straw, sports a Karl May fez & shouts to all
within earshot that he's "The Queen of Belgium." Meinthe is equal parts
George Sanders, Peter Lorre & William Burroughs, the sort of man
who finds conscience distasteful, but is consumed by it nonetheless.
Victor & Yvonne are soon in the grip of sexual obsession &
while more heady themes of exile, film history & the onset of the
Algerian conflict may fleck their bubble of mutual need, sex is the
star here & it's most likely the copious nudity & enraptured
love-making you'll remember about the film. Well, that & the
not-so-good doctor.
This is pornography for people who like to read Marguerite Duras or
Andre Gide aloud to one another before & after they screw.
-Charles Lieurance
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