Le Parfum D'Yvonne
(1994)
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A man remembers an idyllic summer in 1958, spent on the shores of Lake Geneva in avoiding participation in the Algerian conflict, during which he encountered the beguiling Yvonne. |
Patrice Leconte, director of Monsieur Hire and The Hairdresser's Husband, always manages to create a world in which reality and fantasy happily co-exist. However, here he overdoes the unlikely to the extent that this charming but flimsy study of daydreaming and delusion has too little substance to support adequately its more serious undercurrents. Hippolyte Girardot, in Swiss exile to avoid Algerian War service, and Sandra Majani, as the girl dreaming of movie stardom, are as dull as Jean-Pierre Marielle is outrageously camp. Too much perfume is often overpowering, but here the fragrance is so subtle that it's been carried away on the wind before we can truly savour it.