Perfume: Not for the Weak

In case you didn’t know, later this month is National Celebration of the Senses Day. As a Taurus, known lovers of sensual pleasures and luxuries, I will be honoring this holiday to the extreme. For those of you that are a little less inclined to overindulging your senses, I offer a guilt-free alternative. Watch Perfume.

What, you’ve never heard of this movie? I’m not surprised. It’s entirely possible the only reason I know about it is that in college we made a habit of looking up Alan Rickman movies (for Alan Rickman movie night, duh). The full name is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. It is based on a book, but I only brought myself around to reading it some time after first seeing the movie. I didn’t particularly care for the book. I believe my friend Jenn prefers it though, so don’t take my opinion as a reason not to read it.

Perfume is an interesting movie. I shy away from terms like “good” for this one, but there are things about it that I find very compelling. There are also parts that are a total mind screw, just to warn you. I happened upon a post the other day that notes Perfume “both suffers from and subsequently plays with the fact that film is still a medium that cannot engage all of our senses, such as smell,” which I consider both remarkably accurate, and one of the main reasons I (somewhat) enjoy the movie.

The main gist of Perfume is that there is a character, Jean-Baptiste, who has such a heightened sense of smell that he experiences the world in an entirely different manner from the rest of us. He fears losing wonderful smells, and becomes a perfume apprentice in order to learn how to capture scent. His goal evolves to try and create the perfect perfume.

While this is an interesting premise, I can’t say the storyline is the draw for me. That’s probably why I didn’t really care for the book. What I find fascinating is the way the movie tries to get the viewer to experience what Jean-Baptiste experiences. Obviously, we can’t. We can’t smell things through the tv. What they do instead is use visuals and audio to pull us into the same mindset. This is what I so thoroughly enjoy about the movie.

The other interesting aspect of the movie is the ending. While I’m not going to give away any spoilers here, we used to make people watch Perfume just to see how they reacted to the end.

This is a movie that I feel like everyone should watch at least once, and then I’d enjoy discussing it with them, but there’s a good possibility you may dislike it or be morally offended. So since I like lists, here are some reasons to either watch, or not watch it.

Reasons to Watch Perfume

5. Dustin Hoffman wears a wig. What, that’s not a good enough reason for you?? His scenes are plenty great without the wig, but it’s nonetheless a source of delight.

4. The dark humor is amusing if you like that type of thing.

3. The visuals (in my opinion) are stunning.

2. If nothing else, it raises tons of great questions about life, meaning, beauty, sociopaths, and so on and so forth.

1. Alan Rickman portrays potentially the fictional world’s best father (Liam Neeson is probably winning that contest); very appropriate as Father’s Day is also coming up.

Reasons Perfume May Traumatize or Offend You

5. There’s violence.

4. There’s nudity.

3. There’s a casual disregard of humanity.

2. There are religious references and some religious figures involved in unseemly behavior.

1. The ending, pardon my French (that’s a joke by the way, since the movie is based in France. I knew you didn’t know that so I was nice enough to clarify), is a total “what the f*ck” experience.

This will take on a whole new meaning...

If you do watch it, or have watched it before, please find me (that can be virtually, we don’t need to get into a stalking scenario) and tell me your thoughts! I will say this, the movie left such a strong impression on me that I spent several subsequent days with trash cans placed in front of my door. This is actually my friend Jenn’s top reason for why you should watch Perfume, and it will make more sense once you do!

TVD: Vamps & Tramps, Not Apples & Oranges

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

When comparing vampire myths I have mentioned True Blood a few times, and with good reason. The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are actually remarkably similar. In fact, it’s a common question in the world (yes, the whole world, of course not just neeky people chatting online) which series is the better one to watch. This is up for some debate.

Now I have watched True Blood up to this past season, which I haven’t watched yet. I have watched The Vampire Diaries up to the very last episode in season 3. Thus I feel qualified to make some suggestions.

As I said, the series are super similar. Knowing how everyone loves a good list, here are several areas in which the shows overlap:

·      Both are based on a book series.

·      Both shows develop a way for vampires to be in the sunlight.

·      Both draw in other supernatural elements… vampires, witches, and werewolves – oh my!

·      Both introduce werewolves in the second season.

·      Both have main (hot) female characters who are non-vampire.

·      Both main female characters have only one sibling, a brother.

·      Both main female characters (mfcs) have dead parents.

·      Both mfcs initially still live with their female guardian.

·      Both mfcs fall in love with a “good” vampire.

·      Both mfcs then get some hard core lust going on for a “bad” vampire.

·      Both mfcs are summarily torn between the two.

·      Both mfcs have “special” blood.

See? Practically the same show.

The big differences between the two are sex & violence. Since True Blood is the adult show, you would expect it to be the more sexual & violent of the two. Well, you’re half right.

True Blood definitely has more sex, and it’s definitely more graphic. This is not a show to watch with your grandma (your grandma’s already secretly watching it at night when she’s done reading Fifty Shade of Grey). I have actually heard people say before that a large part of why they watch True Blood is for the sex.

Yes, please.

Now TVD on the other hand is a little more subdued with the rampant lovemaking. Oh it happens here and there. Vampire hormones apparently are constantly stuck in horny teenager mode. But it’s certainly not every episode and there’s certainly far less body exposure. Not that I have anything against Eric Northman strutting around in the buff. Faaaaaaaaaaaar from it.

But when it comes to violence, I actually think the shows are pretty evenly tied. True Blood is a bit more visual and gross. TVD is a little more realistic with its violence and torture. However, where TVD totally has True Blood beat is the body count.

As I’m said before, in The Vampire Diaries people die ALL THE FREAKING TIME. That wasn’t an exaggeration.

Not only do people die, the ones that die are RELEVANT. They’re not just killing off random characters you met for a second and figured would probably die. Sure, True Blood has had some very shocking character deaths, but TVD totally has them topped, even if you only count characters that appear in the first two episodes and then die.

This is one of the things I really like about TVD. When a character I like gets into some sort of undesirable situation, I legitimately do not know if they’ll survive. But this is FANTASTIC. I mean sure, it makes me quite cross at times, but it also keeps me on the edge of my seat. I have no false sense of security. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they kill off one of the three main characters. I am invested in some of these characters. Not knowing what might happen to them keeps me watching, keeps me tense, and keeps me screaming at the screen.

TVD Week: It Begins

You may or may not remember that back in June, I possibly promised a week’s worth of Vampire Diaries blogs. Maybe you forgot, maybe you hoped it would never come to pass, or (ideally) you’ve been waiting anxiously for TVD week to start. Well I’m here to announce friends that it has finally arrived! In honor of season 3 of Vampire Diaries (or TVD for those who get sick of writing it out over, and over, and over again, and are well aware of the bad-joke ramifications of calling something “VD”) being released on DVD this upcoming Tuesday, I am devoting a full week of entries to vampires, friendship, love, and the wonders of TVD!

Now if you watch the show, or plan to watch it at some point, be wary of spoilers. Sooooooooooo much happens in the show that it is impossible to say anything without some sort of spoiler. I will be respectful though and try to avoid anything too major, mainly from season 3. Seasons 1&2 are a little more open for abounding spoilers.

Additionally, I will start the week off with a few more general posts on vampires so even if you’re not a TVD fan, you have a little somethin’ somethin’ to get your fix until my next non-TVD post.

One of the things I was surprised to love about TVD was its take on vampires. I’m a big vampire fan. I’ve always loved vampire books and movies, despite the fact that some of them scare the crap out of me. When I was a teenager, I worked at a used bookstore so it was fairly easy to find new vampire books in the horror section.

Then one day, this strange new trend started called paranormal romance. The emergence of paranormal romance fiction deserves a pros & cons list of its own, but that’s not what we’re here for today. At first, I was excited. This meant a huge influx of new vampire-related reading material. Unfortunately, I soon realized that not everyone who writes should, and when people are trying to be unique while using a stock type situation/character (such as vampires) they fall into this trap where they try to make their vampires cool and distinct, and instead they wind up retarded and sparkly.

But I’ve always enjoyed comparing the different myths on vampires, and how they emerge in fiction.

Take, for instance, the mirror thing. In some versions, vampires don’t have reflections. Good examples would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daybreakers, and the Real Vampires Have Curves series which I love, because Glory often discusses the difficulty of putting on makeup without a reflection. True dat. This one is fairly inconsistent though, and doesn’t really mean much as opposed to other areas of the lore. So what if someone doesn’t have a reflection? It’s really only used to identify vampires, and can too easily be excused as a trick of the eyes.

Better areas to explore are things that repel vampires. Garlic, for instance. I don’t find this one to pop up too frequently, but it gives a whole new appeal to garlic bread as anti-vampire assurance. Crosses are controversial. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes, as in the Anita Blake series, it’s not the symbol that’s important but your faith in it. I like that version. Series where crosses always repel vampires are basically endorsing Christianity. Not that I’m against it (we are NOT getting into religious debate people, let’s focus on the vampires here), but I like my vampires to be more universal.

Now some vampire lore areas are ones people have heard of, but it’s hard to find examples. Such as vampires cannot cross running water. In fact the only instance of this I can recall off the top of my head is actually in the book I Am Legend when Neville proves this one is just a myth. Yet I had heard that one before, so I’m not sure where it originated. If anything I think it’s an honest mistake confusing vampires with fairies, as running water is supposed to be protection against fairies. Or maybe early vampires were thought to be an offshoot of fairies? That’s a totally interesting concept that I should explore some day in a story!

This looks like Christmas with my family...

For the most part, the vampires of TVD aren’t encumbered by the typical vampire issues. Garlic doesn’t bug them. They can eat, and drink alcohol like it’s going out of style. No problems with mirrors or videos. But they do, however, have to deal with the house issue.

Vampires cannot come into houses unless invited. While this isn’t true in some versions like Twilight (hard for your main male character to be such a sketch stalker if he can’t wander into houses as he pleases), it is true in other popular series such as True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have to say I quite like in True Blood how you can rescind the invitation, because it makes it interesting to watch the vampires getting thrown out of the house.

Sadly TVD doesn’t have that option. Once a vampire has been invited in, you’re basically screwed. Better move. Although be wary of apartments. Damon at one point goes on a little ramble about how it works. Public buildings are open to vampires. Owned houses are always safe. Apartments are tricky depending on the lease.

Now one has to ask, why do the creators of vampire fiction go with some myths over others? Why do they create the limits in such a way? And I am personally convinced that when it came to the house invitation issue, the TVD think brains decided against rescinding invitations because they want it to be easier to kill people. Yeah, that’s right, this isn’t just some little teenage fantasy where the vampires are good and no one ever dies. People die ALL THE FREAKING TIME. In fact, stay tuned this week as that will be a separate post all on its own.

What I mainly like about TVD is that I do think there are some pretty unique features to their vampires. Sure, they have some of the basics, but they have some interesting new stuff going on too.

But this is already fairly long, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow: How to Make/Kill Your Own Vampire.

A Question of Genre

Currently I’m watching The Holiday and eating candy cigarettes. I love this movie, it’s adorable, and Kate Winslet’s character is too sweet. I want to give her like 5 millions hugs. This then makes me think of The Reader. Not that I’ve watched the movie, but I saw the commercials with Kate Winslet, and I read the book. Completely different character. I’d be a bit interested in seeing Kate Winslet like that, but having read the book, I don’t feel the need to watch the movie. Mostly because I didn’t really love the book. It’s weird how that works.

Really, the whole book versus movie thing is a loaded question. I think this is something neeks will debate til the end of time. Nor is this only restrained to “books” and “movies,” the same thing happens when you adapt a comic or when you’re turning a book into a tv show instead of a movie.

I used to think I always preferred the book version. Which makes sense, considering how much I love reading. And in a lot of cases this is still absolutely true, like with Memoirs of a Geisha, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Interview with a Vampire.

My new theory though is that I prefer whichever version I encounter first. I saw Chocolat several times before reading the book, and I didn’t like the book much at all. Same with Stardust, and Perfume. Now typically the reason I like the book more is that you get so much more background information, and I like having that knowledge. Yet especially with Stardust and Perfume, I didn’t feel like I needed that background to enjoy the movie. Perfume for instance is so visually compelling, the characters and plot are almost secondary to my enjoyment. Thus when I read the book and that’s all I had to work with, I found I really wasn’t drawn into the story at all.

This isn’t true for everyone, obviously. In fact most of these examples my friend has read/watched as well, and it’s about 50/50 when we agree on which versions we prefer.

And yet there are still even more adaptations that defy my theory. They really fit into a whole class of their own. These are the adaptations where I like both the original and the movie version equally.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean these are the adaptions that stick the closest to the original version. I think the key problem with adaptions is when people don’t understand that rule. An adaption doesn’t have to be exact, it just has to capture the feel of the original.

For instance I love all of the Lord of the Rings equally. Sure, things were changed all around. In fact I get a bit annoyed when Faramir drags Frodo back with him, but overall I think they did a wonderful job envisioning the world Tolkien had created. Same with The Hunger Games. I absolutely adored the first book. Probably that would still be my first choice over the movie, but it’s very close. All of the changes were appropriate to the large difference in how the information is being presented. The book, being first person, lets you know exactly what Katniss is thinking, and that’s all you know. The movie took advantage of seeing other areas when Katniss wasn’t around, and I loved it. And who isn’t loving Game of Thrones?? I mean really.

Hottest Vampire EVER

This next one is a little controversial for fans, but I’m going to say it anyways. I also like both the book and the movie for Queen of the Damned. This is an adaptation that went wwwwwwwweeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll away from the original version. Basically the only thing that’s the same is the names of characters. Yet I love it. I wouldn’t go so far to say that it’s a good adaptation. But nonetheless I find something hauntingly beautiful about the movie.

You know really, there are even more examples that ruin my theory. Take Speed Racer. I did not like the cartoon as a child. I watched it, but it got on my nerves. I’m not even sure this was the cartoon’s fault. The only time I watched it was late at night, what nowadays is the time for Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. I frequently stayed over at my friend Bri’s house, and she had a tv in her room that she left on all night. I didn’t like changing the channel because I was in a top bunk, didn’t want to move (there were monsters under the bed), didn’t have a remote, and couldn’t sleep because I found it difficult to fall asleep until late at night. Thus, I was stuck with Speed Racer.

However, the minute I saw previews for the movie I was uber excited. It looked amazing. I dragged friends to see it for my birthday, and I LOVED it. Speed Racer is now one of my absolute favorite movies. And while all the references to the show cracked me up, I still would not want to watch the original cartoon.

I could go on and on with more examples. I’m sure you could provide tons too. It’s fun to consider the differences in version and which you prefer, because I think in the end it says a lot about your personality when you figure out why you prefer one version over another.

Not nearly as good as it looks.

And maybe there’s some secret formula for creating the perfect adaptation. If there is, we should certainly spend our time figuring it out. That way when you hear your favorite book is being turned into a movie, you don’t have to have that moment of blind panic where you wonder if they’re going to completely screw it up. Like X-Men 3.