PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK: Mimsy Farmer’s Aria Of Psychological Decay

Some cult film sub­gen­res are like their own pri­vate worlds, oper­at­ing on a set of rules that don’t apply to the aver­age nar­ra­tive film.  The giallo is one of the best exam­ples of this kind of sub­genre.  The term refers to an Italian style of mystery/thriller film­mak­ing that fea­tures ser­pen­tine plot­ting, a string of often bizarre mur­ders and a strong ele­ment of bizarre psy­chol­ogy.  The giallo fre­quently bypasses rules of struc­ture, plot­ting and nar­ra­tive sense to cre­ate its own elas­tic style of cine-reality.

Perfume Of The Lady In Black is a par­tic­u­larly fas­ci­nat­ing exam­ple of the giallo style — and dou­bly unique because it bends the giallo rules to cre­ate its own dis­tinc­tive vari­a­tion of the sub­genre.  The story revolves around Silvia (Mimsy Farmer), a chemist who seems to lead a decent life in Italy.  She is in a posi­tion of author­ity, is roman­ti­cally involved and lives a com­fort­able lifestyle.  Everything seems idyl­lic for her until she attends a social gath­er­ing where an African friend of her boyfriend’s speaks omi­nously about witch­craft and mad­ness in his homeland.

And that is where Silvia’s life takes a turn towards the bizarre.  Memories of a repressed child­hood trauma start bub­bling to the sur­face, intrud­ing on her day-to-day real­ity.  She hal­lu­ci­nates about the title fig­ure and a lit­tle girl that may rep­re­sent what Sylvia was like as a child.  She begins to see strange or omi­nous intent in the actions of all around her (and in a clever step, the audi­ence is allowed to see sim­i­lar events that she can’t see — thus draw­ing us fur­ther into her grow­ing para­noia).  Her grasp on reality/fantasy and past/present spi­rals out of con­trol as peo­ple around her begin to die, lead­ing her to take des­per­ate mea­sures that cul­mi­nate in a gen­uinely sur­pris­ing shock ending.

The end result is both a giallo and a sub­ver­sion of this sub­genre all at once.  It’s got sev­eral key ele­ments — a fetishis­tic sense of visual design and color, a hyp­notic musi­cal score, a few bru­tal mur­ders and an unnerv­ing tone of dark psy­chol­ogy.  However, it also dif­fers from the usual giallo in some key ways.  The killings are delayed until late in the film and the mys­tery ele­ment ends up tak­ing a back­seat to the explo­ration of Silvia’s crum­bling psy­che.  The expected flash­backs to a past trauma are present but are mainly used to illus­trate the inner tur­moil that the hero­ine sup­presses instead of advanc­ing the main plot.

That said, Perfume Of The Lady In Black is no less a hor­ror film despite these devi­a­tions from the expected trap­pings of the giallo.  Co-writer/director Francesco Barilli does a beau­ti­ful job of infus­ing the gor­geous visual ele­ments with a fore­bod­ing mood and directs the work of his col­lab­o­ra­tors toward these ends:  Mario Masini’s lush cin­e­matog­ra­phy han­dles sun­light and shadow with equal aplomb and Nicola Piovani con­tributes a lush yet creepy musi­cal score build a musical-box motif that gets under the viewer’s skin.  Barilli also deserves praise for the clever script he penned with Massimo D’Avak, which jug­gles a num­ber of ele­ments to keep the viewer off-balance until the film pays off in a dev­as­tat­ing way at its finale.

However, the ele­ment that really dri­ves home the over­all effect of Perfume Of The Lady In Black is Farmer’s per­for­mance as its trou­bled hero­ine.  She was a reg­u­lar in Italian genre fare dur­ing the 1970’s and in films like Autopsy and Four Flies On Grey Velvet she showed a unique skill for cre­at­ing char­ac­ters dri­ven by a slow-burning style of insan­ity.  She gets her best-ever oppor­tu­nity to flex those skills here and digs into the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion with the inten­sity of an opera singer. The result­ing per­for­mance is one of the great slowly-going-mad char­ac­ters in Eurocult his­tory.  Her abil­ity to hit and sus­tain a mood of psy­cho­log­i­cal anguish is impres­sive and plays a key role in the film’s over­all unnerv­ing effect.

In short, Perfume Of The Lady In Black is a peak exam­ple of 1970’s Italian hor­ror and deserves spe­cial notice for being one of a small hand­ful of giallo films that inno­vate upon this dream­like sub­genre.  If you’re into Eurocult stuff, it is a must.