The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974, dir. Francesco Barilli, Italy) by Kymm Zuckert

“In a Wonderland they lie/Dreaming as the days go by/Dreaming as the summers die/Ever drifting down the stream/Lingering in the golden gleam/Life, what is it but a dream?”

Okay, here is the thing. I have been on vacation all of January, just arriving back home the other day, and had neither the time nor the energy to see a movie for this week, so I thought I’d look back at some films I wrote about in the past, but hadn’t posted anywhere. 

Well, last year I was watching a lot of Giallo January at American Cinematique, and since I missed it this year, what a perfect time to relive my viewing of this weird little highly enjoyable film.  

When they introduced the film, we were told that this was a print on its last legs, that it would probably only be screened twice more after we saw it, and then discarded. This didn’t mean that the print was scratched or faded or brown and unwatchable, not a bit of it, the colour was gorgeous, but the film had become what they call vinegary, meaning that the focus would go in and out, and the projectionist would have to keep adjusting it all the time, and even then some scenes looked like they were underwater. Which actually worked extremely well for this dreamlike film. But knowing we were one of the last audiences for this print, when they don’t make new Technicolor prints anymore, made the watching of it almost a ceremony.

This is a stylishly weird little movie, and it rewards a second viewing, knowing the end and seeing the trail that leads there. I didn’t plan on watching it again, but I needed a quote of the top of the page, and there weren’t any in IMDb, so I pulled up the film on Kanopy and started going through it on fast forward, stopping and watching scenes, one of which made me go, aha! This is what the film is about, but I didn’t realize!

As I was originally told, Giallo films are about a mystery where an innocent gets mixed up in it, and has to solve it. In this film, the innocent is both the detective and the mystery, it’s very interesting how it all gets woven together.

Silvia (Mimsie Farmer, whom I saw in The Black Cat, one of my first Giallos in 2019) is an industrial scientist and her job is very important to her. Then her boyfriend, Roberto (Maurizio Bonuglia) has a fight with her because she won’t ever ditch work to play tennis, and then she literally never goes back to work for the entire movie. This is the least weird thing that happens, but it struck me.

Silvia’s mother died as a child, and she keeps having visions of her wearing black and spraying herself with perfume, and also a nasty little brat who seems to possibly be Silvia herself as a child. Things get stranger and stranger and stranger, and then SOOPER STRANGE!

Look, either you will see this movie or you won’t, and the less you know about it the better. If you are a Giallo fan, this is unmissable, and if you are not, well, continue your grey, grey life as it is, you will be happy, you’ll just miss a little pop of colour. like a drop of blood on a white shoe.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog