I thoroughly enjoyed Jasminum. The film is beautifully set in a small Polish townfar, far away from the reality of urban Warsawwhere surreal elements come to life and peace of mind affords the characters a chance to reflect and search for what is missing in their lives.
Nearly every character in this film is looking for something namely, the missing pieces in their lives that could lead to fulfillment. The mother is trying to find the perfect mixture of scents, but also trying to find her own spirituality, which was destroyed twenty years ago when her fiancé left her at the alter and her mother died four days later. All of the monks have their own peculiar and personal mysteries to solve: the head monk wants to find the pattern in the movement of the monks; the care-taker monk/cook searches for meaning through St. Roch; the other monks in the monastery play lesser roles, yet despite providing comic relief, also are looking for somethingmeaning in life through meditation and prayer. Through loneliness and circumstance, both the hairdresser and small girl need love and caring from male figures, which, for different reasons, they lack in their lives.
Jasminum then uses these discrete ingredients that each character offers (love, beauty, aroma, childhood innocence, and spiritual purity) to explore the nuanced area between black and white, science and spirit, or "the space between is and is not." Using the refurbished painting as a metaphor throughout the film, we see that chemistry and physics alone cannot produce a feeling or beauty. This theme is brought to the surface in the use of contrasts: for example, the old and somewhat stale male-dominated monastery contrasted with the vibrant small girl and her mom. Some of the missing ingredients that exist in the nuanced area are seen throughout the film: 1) the main character looking throughout the film for that missing part of her past, her ex-fiancé, 2) The hair dresser unable to find true love, despite her good looks and desire to do so, and 3) The care-taker monk/cook who needs something more in his life beyond spiritualism, which he clearly finds in the small visiting girl.
Overall, I really liked this story and this film. The story was complex and slow to reveal itself, and even now I feel that there was plenty that I did not understand. The power of the mixed scent was on the borderline of being exaggerated to the point of distracting from the development of the film as a whole. In the end, however, there were enough ideas and character development, so that the aphrodisiac nature of the scent did not become too absurd, which, I felt was the downfall in magical-realistic movies of a similar genre, such as Chocolat.
One thing I would have liked to see a bit more of were the three monks talking and interacting together. They seemed to have real chemistry together, breaking and explaining their vows of silence, for example, and they were a refreshing break from the seriousness of the other actors, including, strangely, the little girl who thought and behaved far beyond her years.
Nearly every character in this film is looking for something namely, the missing pieces in their lives that could lead to fulfillment. The mother is trying to find the perfect mixture of scents, but also trying to find her own spirituality, which was destroyed twenty years ago when her fiancé left her at the alter and her mother died four days later. All of the monks have their own peculiar and personal mysteries to solve: the head monk wants to find the pattern in the movement of the monks; the care-taker monk/cook searches for meaning through St. Roch; the other monks in the monastery play lesser roles, yet despite providing comic relief, also are looking for somethingmeaning in life through meditation and prayer. Through loneliness and circumstance, both the hairdresser and small girl need love and caring from male figures, which, for different reasons, they lack in their lives.
Jasminum then uses these discrete ingredients that each character offers (love, beauty, aroma, childhood innocence, and spiritual purity) to explore the nuanced area between black and white, science and spirit, or "the space between is and is not." Using the refurbished painting as a metaphor throughout the film, we see that chemistry and physics alone cannot produce a feeling or beauty. This theme is brought to the surface in the use of contrasts: for example, the old and somewhat stale male-dominated monastery contrasted with the vibrant small girl and her mom. Some of the missing ingredients that exist in the nuanced area are seen throughout the film: 1) the main character looking throughout the film for that missing part of her past, her ex-fiancé, 2) The hair dresser unable to find true love, despite her good looks and desire to do so, and 3) The care-taker monk/cook who needs something more in his life beyond spiritualism, which he clearly finds in the small visiting girl.
Overall, I really liked this story and this film. The story was complex and slow to reveal itself, and even now I feel that there was plenty that I did not understand. The power of the mixed scent was on the borderline of being exaggerated to the point of distracting from the development of the film as a whole. In the end, however, there were enough ideas and character development, so that the aphrodisiac nature of the scent did not become too absurd, which, I felt was the downfall in magical-realistic movies of a similar genre, such as Chocolat.
One thing I would have liked to see a bit more of were the three monks talking and interacting together. They seemed to have real chemistry together, breaking and explaining their vows of silence, for example, and they were a refreshing break from the seriousness of the other actors, including, strangely, the little girl who thought and behaved far beyond her years.