Perfume

Best movie I've seen in a long time. Why?

Because it's so new, so original, that I don't even care that it was a book long before it was a movie. I don't care that the portrayal of 18th century Paris is so grim and bitter, that the images were often too graphic for American media, and that Dustin Hoffman was a poor choice for an Italian master perfumer living in Paris. The idea is so fresh for cinema that it didn't matter.

Speaking for myself, I don't think it's that big an issue and that people need to face the fact that modesty is a man-made concept, but it's interesting that this got passed in the United States as an "R" rated film, given that some of the most intriguing shots include teenage nudity. With a rather sketchy premise, I might add.

One more thing I might add: It was a so difficult to distinguish the plum girl, Karoline Herfurth, from Laura, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, that I actually didn't realize the difference after I got back home. No problem, though, their aesthetic similarity made the movie more powerful in this odd, unexplainable way.