The Fragrance of Women (1974)

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Movie
German title The fragrance of women
Original title Profumo di donna
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1974
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Dino Risi
script Ruggero Maccari
Dino Risi based
on a novel by Giovanni Arpino
music Armando Trovajoli
camera Claudio Cirillo
cut Alberto Gallitti
occupation

The Italian feature film The Scent of Women ( Profumo di donna ), based on the novel Il buio e il miele by Giovanni Arpino , from 1974 moves between comedy and melancholy drama. Directed by Dino Risi , Vittorio Gassman played a blind officer in the lead role, for which he has received several awards: with the Italian film awards David di Donatello and Nastro d'Argento as well as in Cannes in 1975 .

action

For a week, a young soldier is given a special assignment to accompany a former captain who has gone blind in a grenade accident to Naples . He picks up the man, Fausto, from his old aunt in Turin . The bitter, lonely officer speaks condescendingly to almost everyone and from then on calls the soldier "Ciccio" (Eng. "Fat boy"), although his name is not at all. Ciccio is annoyed by Fausto's beating and worries when he finds a pistol and a photo of a beautiful young woman in Fausto's suitcase.

They make their first stop on their train journey in Genoa . Apparently Fausto can smell the presence of women. He asks Ciccio to look for the prostitute he smelled on a certain street the day before. Although the girl Mirka found turns out to be someone else, he is satisfied. In Rome they spend the night in a hotel run by nuns, where Fausto talks to his cousin and priest about existential questions of life. Then they briefly meet Ciccio's friend Diana, who Fausto claims must be an occasional prostitute because otherwise she could not afford the handbag and the perfume. They spend their time in Naples with Fausto's relatives. Among them are another blind soldier, Vincenzo, with whom Fausto appears to have a secret agreement, and Sara, the young woman in the photo. She fell in love with dashing Fausto while still at school and offers him her love, which he ostentatiously rejects. During the night, Fausto and Vincenzo attempt to commit suicide together. Fausto wanted to kill Vincenzo by arrangement and missed him; He did not have the courage to kill himself. Ciccio and Sara take him to the country and help cover up the incident as an accident. Ciccio returns to the group, Fausto realizes that he cannot do without Sara and accepts her help.

backgrounds

Fausto's stopover in Rome is because he wants to ask for the blessing of his cousin Don Carlo. He wants the blessing in advance for his deeds which he will commit in Naples. But Don Carlo already envies him because of the suffering that is with him every minute of his life . Because because the cross on which he has to bear so heavily has become the meaning of his life.

The "Ciccio" actor Alessandro Momo died on November 20, 1974, shortly after the shooting was over, in a motorcycle accident in Rome, not far from some of the locations.

Reviews

The Catholic film service regretted in 1975 that the tragedy of the topic only shed through occasionally, Risi remained on the surface with superficial effects, drastic dialogues, tastelessness and disgusting gossip. "By restricting it to the sexual, Risi almost completely excludes the general human side of the problem and narrows the subject down to the individual case of a Casanova who is handicapped in his amorous ambitions." The film-dienst interpreted the end as kitsch. Thanks to the “brilliant” Gassman, the film is more than just a piece of clothing. Dan Yakir found in 1985 that style and content combined make a perfect work of art. Disguised as an erotic comedy, Risi's in-depth film explores questions about human nature, expressions of masculinity and the loss of innocence. Behind the sunny, humorous facade lurks an abyss of pain and despair. In 1995, Jean Tulard said The Scent of Women was "a bitter and desperate film that plays with detachment to make audiences laugh."

Remake

In 1992 the material was filmed again by the US director Martin Brest with the title The Scent of Women , with the location being moved to the United States. Al Pacino played the main role.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ film-dienst , No. 24/1975, drawn by "he"
  2. ^ Dan Yakir: Scent of a woman . In: Frank N. Magill (Ed.): Magill's survey of cinema: foreign language films. Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs 1985, pp. 2667-2671
  3. ↑ Jean Tulard: Parfum de femme , entry in: Jean Tulard (ed.): Guide des films . Laffont, Paris 2005. ISBN 2-221-10452-8 , p. 2428