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Scent of a Woman is as strange as some ancient Greek legends.
Before watching this movie, I thought that although it would not be about smells like "Perfume", it must be at least a romance movie with a man who can know a woman's temperament through body fragrance. This man does exist, and he seems to understand women very well, but the whole movie is about two big men going to New York, and it has basically nothing to do with sweet and soft women. After watching it, I was stunned. I didn’t know what the relationship between the two men’s stories and women had to be related to. It seems that this movie is called “Fighting Man Breaks into New York”
, "Veterans Teach You to Be a Man" or "Where Are We Going, Dad" (Where are we going, Dad, Dad? Hahaha) can better summarize the content of the movie.
However, this movie named itself "Smell the Fragrance and Know a Woman".
Strange is not only the name of the film, but also a "go to hell" tradition in Western literature from ancient Greece. Of course, now, whether in the East or the West, going to hell is not a good thing, and no one who can go to hell is a good person—except for the evil spirit of the Jews, because it is so bad that hell is unwilling to accept it (I will talk about evil Ling's film review is placed after this article). But in the ancient Greek and Roman era (not to mention the previous traditions, and Greek mythology was not completely original), those who could go to hell and still survive (the hell at that time could be called the underworld) were not bad people, or gods. ——For example, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of corn, is the queen of the underworld, or a hero - such as Odysseus in Homer's epic "The Odyssey", who was in the Greek coalition and contributed Zhi Duo Xing with Trojan horse plan. This is the story of Odysseus.
After Odysseus helped the Greek coalition win the Trojan War, he set sail and prepared to go home, but during the voyage home, various accidents prevented him from going back. When he and his men passed by the island of the witch Circe, Circe suggested that Odysseus visit the dead prophet Teresias. So Odysseus went down to the underworld by some means, and summoned the undead of the dead blind prophet Teresias - note that Teresias is also blind, why should I use "also"? Tiresias told Odysseus that he had to deal with Poseidon, the god of the sea, whom he had offended before, and that, despite this, he would have to go through setbacks at sea before he could get home. After hearing the language of Teresias, Odysseus finally saw the way forward in confusion, so he returned to the world from the underworld and continued his journey home with his fleet. Ten years later, he returned home.
Although this story doesn't quite fit with the modern idea of bad people going to hell (of course we also have to explore why this idea was reversed, but that's another article, omitting 100,000 words here), but here In the context of this film review, the story of Odysseus going to the underworld to visit the blind prophet Teresias is curiously similar to the film Scent of a Woman, both in structure and character setting. . Or, we can also say, perhaps the film "Scent of a Woman" uses the story model of Odysseus's visit to Teresias.
In the movie, Charlie, who was studying at an elite high school in the east of the United States, came to a family next to the school to apply for the position of Thanksgiving caregiver in order to make money to buy a plane ticket home for Christmas. The task is to take care of the family when they go to the field for Thanksgiving The home's blind retired colonel. It's a pity that the blind and disabled colonel couldn't be idle on Thanksgiving. He took Charlie from the sparsely populated New Hampshire town to the flowery metropolis of New York. The journey of the two was very luxurious, taking first-class, drinking high-end wine, wearing a custom suit, driving a Ferrari after a stretch car, eating a hamburger for $24 - you know, it was 1992. While the colonel was having a good time, the lad was sullen because he had a trouble at school.
The young man came from a poor family and could not afford to attend such an elite high school with a two-thirds admission rate at Harvard. But because he worked hard to get a scholarship, he left the town grocery store opened by his mother and stepfather to attend this school where rich children gathered. At school, he became friends with a few rich second-generation generations. One night before Thanksgiving, he and his friend saw two, three, and four secretly sabotaging the campus, and then they were hit by a teacher at the school. . When the two of them were talking to the teacher, their friends two, three, and four sneaked away, and the next day, a large balloon was hung on the school street lamp, mocking the principal, kneeling and licking the rich man. The liquid spilled all over him.
So the principal got angry, forced Charlie and his friends to name the troublesome student, and tempted Charlie with a chance to study at Harvard for free. Charlie didn't want to betray his friends, but he didn't say it. Finally, the principal let him go to Thanksgiving to think about it, and he came to New York with the colonel full of worries.
And the Colonel's problem seemed bigger than his problem. He didn't want to be blind and disabled and live alone in the world. When he came to New York this time, he wanted to enjoy the world and commit suicide. Although he could tell a woman's appearance and personality from the scent of the perfume or the soap she used, this man with the necessary talent for a lover was a bachelor. After a casual visit in New York, he also heard a lot of the young man's thoughts. He sent the young man to buy him alcohol and cigarettes, and then planned to end his life in a hotel suite. As a result, the young man realized that something was wrong and came back early, and snatched his gun, which was regarded as saving his life. The two became dead friends and returned to New Hampshire together after Thanksgiving.
The boy who goes back to school is subject to the school's court-like investigation. As soon as his friend is accompanied by a rich father, he is empty and no one is around. At the beginning of the investigation, the colonel came and participated in the meeting in the name of his parents and friends. When the school made an unfair treatment of the boy, he defended the boy impassionedly, arguing that it was the highest honor that he did not betray his friends. His mischievous friend should be punished and the boy innocent and honorable. Because of the superior's remarks, the audience burst into applause, the young man was exempted from punishment, and the colonel was favored by the young man's political teacher - the end of the play.
Although the storyline of "Smell the Scent and Know a Woman" has nothing to do with ancient Greece on the surface, the prototype of the story is still based on the story of Odysseus visiting the blind Teresias. Odysseus went home to visit Teresias, and Charlie the young man was the Colonel's assistant to earn a plane ticket home for Christmas. Of course, Teresias and the colonel were both blind and wise men. Odysseus went to the underworld to summon the undead of Teresias, and the colonel committed suicide in New York—although he was saved, the colonel after being rescued was completely different from the colonel who had always wanted to die before. Before, he particularly hated his brother's granddaughter and grandson. After returning from New York, his attitude towards the two children was much better, and he was willing to integrate into family life. So although he didn't die, he was reborn. In this sense, the plot of the colonel's attempted suicide does not deviate too much from the original story.
In the end, Odysseus was Teresias visiting the underworld, and the colonel took the boy to New York. In other words, New York is the underworld? Of course not, of course not. According to what the Colonel did in New York, New York should symbolize the indulgence of a life in its true state. If the underworld is the death of human life, then New York in the movie should be the love of life, the colonel's final fulfillment of his own life. In Freud's theory, love and death are two primitive instincts of man. Therefore, New York also has something in common with the underworld in a sense.
From this point of view, it is not difficult to understand the title of "Smell the Fragrance and Know a Woman", which is basically inconsistent with the plot. Like New York, it also represents an instinct flowing in life, that is, the relationship between men and women, Guarantee the attractiveness of human reproduction. This attraction can also be considered purely symbolic. And pure, exactly what the Colonel wanted to tell Charlie.
At the school's hearing, on the one hand, the principal emphasized that the school has a long history and many talented people, and it is a place to cultivate leaders. Places become less pure. Therefore, Charlie's loyalty to his friends can only be reduced to the principal's tool - if the colonel does not protect him. The Colonel was Charlie's spiritual father - he called Charlie "son" more than once, and he said he would adopt Charlie; and Charlie developed a fatherly affection for him, and the Colonel was the father he had been looking for.
You know, in "The Odyssey", Odysseus' son Telemachus has also been looking for his father who has not returned for many years.
The Colonel and Charlie's trip to New York is not just a Thanksgiving adventure, it's a journey back to pure spirituality for both of them. And the so-called smelling scent to know a woman, or the original English title of the movie—the scent of a woman—is really just a reference to this kind of living method that is always warm and pure, loyal to the heart and body.
Because the colonel does not allow life to be dusted.
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