The Perfume of Memory

The Perfume of Memory is available for full on YouTube by way of its director, Oswaldo Montenegro. Hypothetically, I’m thrilled to easily and legally access a small, non-English language WLW film. Sure wish it was actually good, though.

The film tells the story of a fateful meeting of two women named Ana and Laura. Both have an affinity for beauty, especially Laura who lives and breaths art. Laura also has a shit boyfriend who’s made her sad. Luckily, Ana fully just shows up at Laura’s house to cheer her up. They’ve never met before but Ana recites one of Laura’s poems she hasn’t shown anyone. The rest of the film is just the two women spending the evening together. They have loads of pseudo-deep conversations, drink a bunch of wine and eventually decide maybe they have lesbian feelings for one another. The film basically speedruns a relationship of first meeting to love confession within a one night period over its 72 minute runtime.

The Perfume of Memory uses magical realism cheaply. The concept of fate is tied into the narrative not because it fits or because it’s a concept the film explores, but because it can fast track this relationship. The film never succeeds in getting me to believe there is a strong, fateful connection between these women. Despite what the voice over tells me, these women feel like borderline strangers all through the movie. Sometimes the film also uses dream or fantasy sequences which are at least a change of pace, but also add nothing to the narrative except proof that the film has a very low budget.

The problem with The Perfume of Memory is that its creator is far too noticeable in the story. Projects that are personal and even vanity projects aren’t necessarily a problem. But what is a problem is how much this lesbian film is tied to a male creator. The film opens with Oswaldo Montenegro narrating. This narration continues through the film. This means that quite blatantly, this story about two women’s connection is told through the lens of a man. Even without this narration, this would be obvious but this male voiceover about what these women are experiencing sure doesn’t help. Oswaldo Montenegro seems to feel the need to constantly remind the audience that despite its female leads, he is the reason this story exists.

The Perfume of Memory also never feels fully like a story or film but like a proof of concept. It’s less of a film on its own and more proof that Oswaldo Montengegro could make a film. Montenegro also uses his own music throughout and directs you to his spotify page in the YouTube video’s comments. Self-promotion isn’t necessarily bad but it does distract from the film’s story. Many of the songs used in the film feel like they were probably written beforehand and this narrative was structured around the pre-existing songs.

And yet despite being a resume more than an actual film, The Perfume of Memory is extremely try-hard. Try-hard is a stupid phrase. Am I really going to critique someone for putting effort into something? Yeah, I am. Because even with this effort, the thing still sucks. The film has all these deeply pretentious topics like the nature of love or art. But despite trying to be literary and fancy, no observations or turns of phrase are things that will stick with me or make me think. If anything, the film feels juvenile in its pretensions of intellect and emotionally moving sentiments.

The Perfume of Memory is a weird vanity project tied up in a bow of failed literary intellect. It looks and feels like a soap opera with unreached lofty ambitions of not being a soap opera. There is no character work or insight here. It is a male creator who deliberately leaves his fingerprints all over this story about two women. So yeah, it’s free and legal on YouTube but there are a lot more worthwhile ways to spend 73 minutes of your life.

Overall rating: 2.4/10

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