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Le Parfum D'Yvonne
[1994] [ English subtitles ]

Starring: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Hippolyte Girardot, Sandra Majani, Richard Bohringer, Paul Guers
Director: Patrice Leconte
Format: Anamorphic PAL Widescreen
Released: 07 Mar 2005
RRP: £19.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

A trivial and pretentious skinflick - By: Geraldo, 18 Oct 2007
That's alll there is to it in my view I'm afraid. Admittedly Sandra Majani looks so beautiful it is tempting to credit the film with a profundity that would justify the eroticism but I regret I was unable to detect it.
Also, did it kill her career ? This film was apparently made in 1994 & I am unaware of anything else she has made...
Very disappointing - By: Geraldo, 17 Oct 2007
I regret that I found Le Parfum D'Yvonne to be nothing more than a pretentious skinflick. The plot line is trivial in the extreme providing the, admittedly beautiful, Sandra Majani with the opportunity to play a vacuous & scheming woman who achieves her aims by removing her clothes at regular intervals.
A rare misfire from Leconte - By: Trevor Willsmer, 01 Jul 2007
Le Parfum d'Yvonne is a rare misfire from Patrice Leconte that doesn't reallly work on any level. The main problem with this remembrance of love lost is the casting: Jean-Pierre Marielle is fine as the archetypal ageing queen & matchmaker-cum-chaperone, but neither Hippolyte Girardot or Sandra Majani bring much to the lovers, leaving us with fragments of a vague relationship between two people we don't care about. Not painful, but lacking purpose & capped off with an absurd ending that seems to be there simply to give the film an exclamation point.

Second Sight's PAL DVD features no extras but does offer the film in a good transfer in its original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio
A visual spectacle - By: Budge Burgess, 09 Aug 2005
Director Patrice Leconte used to illustrate comics & draw cartoon strips; he brings to his filmmaking an ability to subtly tease reality into fantasy, to take naturalistic settings & situations & transform them by creating an intoxicating atmosphere in which their ridiculous, sensuous, or enigmatic dimensions come to the fore. It is typical Leconte, therefore, that he should make a film about something as visuallly elusive & ephemeral as scent. The film is not, of course, about perfume ... but.

Based on a novel by Patrick Modiano ('Villa Triste'), "Le Parfum D'Yvonne" describes a summer affair between Victor (Hippolyte Giradot) & Yvonne (Sandra Majani). It is 1958, France is embroiled in a civil war in Algeria, the fighting, terrorism & political turmoil spilling across the Mediterranean into Francophone Europe. Victor - who poses as an émigré Russian aristocrat - is hiding in Switzerland to avoid conscription into the French army. He idles away the summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, renting a room in an elegant little hotel, spending his days hanging around the lounge of a more illustrious one. His entire life seems to be contained in a trunk full of film magazines.

Into his life comes the beautiful Yvonne. Her roots are hardly aristocratic, though she poses as a sophisticated young woman, aping the style of an English debutante while dreaming of a life as a film actress. She & Victor begin an affair.

Their time together, however, is moderated, invigorated, & fuelled by the outrageously camp Dr. Meinthe (Jean-Pierre Marielle), a lotus-eater who seems to provide some illicit medical services for one of the many sides in the Algerian conflict. He idles his life in dining out & posing.

It is beautifully filmed. Leconte has an almost voyeuristic style, observing the life of his characters. He plays with the elegance & style of the situation & exploits its erotic potential to the full. The characters are fundamentallly bored & boring, seeking excitement & escape from the ennui into which they have subsided. Leconte exposes bodies, but the characters remain shrouded. If Yvonne's fragrance is elusive & ephemeral, so too is the past ... & future ... of her lover.

This is a visuallly intoxicating film, & Sandra Majani is delightful to look at. You do, however, feel that it has less substance than a hint of perfume. Enigmatic, erotic, entertaining, absorbing, yet it is not amongst Leconte's best. It lacks something, some quality to make the fragile narrative gel & take substance. The subtlety of the perfume remains just too diluted.

The DVD offers no extras - no background or interviews with actors or director, but then Leconte does not appear to be renowned for his interest in interviews or providing extras. Given the distance in time, some sort of background on the Algerian conflict might help viewers, particularly in English-speaking countries (or non-French-speaking ones). But visual & sound quality are excellent & the film is a joy to watch.

in the name of love........... - By: bozo, 13 Feb 2005
This is a movie of rare emmotional depth & extreme beauty.

I am delighted with this DVD release as I wore out my VHS copy some time back.

A story of a romance - an affair - a love story.
An evocotive film that captures the need of love ~ the essence of desire ~ & the terms of engagement.

Three people in a search of love.
Three agendas explored.
The magic & loss.
The inevitable heartbreak.
Love's tradegy.

It captures fleeting passages in time ~ those elusive moments that linger ~tantalise.

A peroid piece of absolute delight charting a brief encounter.
A nostalgic film that fills you with deja vu.
Eroticallly charged ~ heart rendering ~it leaves you with a yearning~ a yearning for love.

the promise of love in a perfume's traces.