_The Green Perfume_ is Nicholas Pariser's comic/romantic thriller, in the mode of Hitchcock (the femme fatale's blond wig in the opening scene is a dead giveaway) and _Diva_ (with Comedie-Francaise stage plays rather than opera as subtext). Martin (Vincent Lacoste) finds his costar dying in his arms on stage, and is immediately kidnapped and framed for murder. On the run, he bumps into cartoonist Claire (Sandrine Kiberlain), who complains of his off-kilter, neurotic ways. Since those two adjectives are pretty much the middle names of most of Kiberlain's characters in her career, you can tell they are all but separated-at-birth, and will ultimately hit it off.
Claire is whip-smart, five steps ahead of the hapless Martin, the police, and the thugs chasing them. They criss-cross Europe, to Brussels and Budapest in search of answers, as people drop like flies around them. (For a romantic comedy, _The Green Perfume_ has a serious body count, even if the violence occurs off-screen.) The film ends on a romantic note on a bridge on the Danube, which nicely echoes their earlier adventure over the Seine. One assumes it is also a bridge to their happiness. The visual compositions are marvelously evocative indeed: repeated overhead shots of staircases and cramped train rides recall each other, they return to haunt you. The sound design is lovely. When the police chief finds her agent dead in a phone booth, we only see the back of her head, but from the sudden hushing of ambient crowd noise we know exactly, subjectively, how she feels.
Despite the farcical tone, the film addresses the usually serious Pariser's recurring themes: the intersection of art and politics; ideology and idealism in the face of indifference; the role of Western ideas in this chaotic start to a new century. The climatic "Ivanov" rendition (an early play by Chekhov) is staged against a backdrop of war's carnage; the "Mcguffin" everyone is seeking is a device for dispensing fake news. In a heart-to-heart chat of the type often found in the middle of Pariser's films, Claire reveals she has spent 20 year in Israel as a left-wing activist, losing every election; she has returned to France to relive her idea of Europe. (Correction -- _Ivanov_ must be the play in the opening scene. I haven't pinned down which the second play is ...)
Pariser has an enviable track record of creating great female characters among male writers. Here he is helped immeasurably by Kiberlain, who can toss a thousand side-way glances and eye rolls a minute while pursing her already downward curling lips; she has more facial ticks, more dream-shakes on camera, than Hakeem Olajuwon has moves in front of a basket. If you are a fan you will love _The Green Perfume_. (And if you are not -- what is your problem?) Vincent Lacoste is like a young Hugh Grant here, a magnet for small accidents and women. He plays the young version of the protagonist in Honore's wonderful _On a Magical Night_, and has thus amassed a remarkable romantic casting chances against older female leads (Camille Cottin, Chiara Mastroianni, and now Kiberlain). Of the supporting actors, Rudiger Vogler has better lines than most James Bond villains. Good to see the alter ego of so many Wim Wender road movies again! One wishes Jenna Thiam is given more to do, but looking up imdb, the mother of the boy on a train ride is played by Gwenaelle Simon, one of Eric Rohmer's sirens in _A Summer's Tale_! The matching mustache on two secret agents makes me swoon. It is that kind of film.
Claire is whip-smart, five steps ahead of the hapless Martin, the police, and the thugs chasing them. They criss-cross Europe, to Brussels and Budapest in search of answers, as people drop like flies around them. (For a romantic comedy, _The Green Perfume_ has a serious body count, even if the violence occurs off-screen.) The film ends on a romantic note on a bridge on the Danube, which nicely echoes their earlier adventure over the Seine. One assumes it is also a bridge to their happiness. The visual compositions are marvelously evocative indeed: repeated overhead shots of staircases and cramped train rides recall each other, they return to haunt you. The sound design is lovely. When the police chief finds her agent dead in a phone booth, we only see the back of her head, but from the sudden hushing of ambient crowd noise we know exactly, subjectively, how she feels.
Despite the farcical tone, the film addresses the usually serious Pariser's recurring themes: the intersection of art and politics; ideology and idealism in the face of indifference; the role of Western ideas in this chaotic start to a new century. The climatic "Ivanov" rendition (an early play by Chekhov) is staged against a backdrop of war's carnage; the "Mcguffin" everyone is seeking is a device for dispensing fake news. In a heart-to-heart chat of the type often found in the middle of Pariser's films, Claire reveals she has spent 20 year in Israel as a left-wing activist, losing every election; she has returned to France to relive her idea of Europe. (Correction -- _Ivanov_ must be the play in the opening scene. I haven't pinned down which the second play is ...)
Pariser has an enviable track record of creating great female characters among male writers. Here he is helped immeasurably by Kiberlain, who can toss a thousand side-way glances and eye rolls a minute while pursing her already downward curling lips; she has more facial ticks, more dream-shakes on camera, than Hakeem Olajuwon has moves in front of a basket. If you are a fan you will love _The Green Perfume_. (And if you are not -- what is your problem?) Vincent Lacoste is like a young Hugh Grant here, a magnet for small accidents and women. He plays the young version of the protagonist in Honore's wonderful _On a Magical Night_, and has thus amassed a remarkable romantic casting chances against older female leads (Camille Cottin, Chiara Mastroianni, and now Kiberlain). Of the supporting actors, Rudiger Vogler has better lines than most James Bond villains. Good to see the alter ego of so many Wim Wender road movies again! One wishes Jenna Thiam is given more to do, but looking up imdb, the mother of the boy on a train ride is played by Gwenaelle Simon, one of Eric Rohmer's sirens in _A Summer's Tale_! The matching mustache on two secret agents makes me swoon. It is that kind of film.