Observation #10

The film is trying to argue that the peasants live in very unsatisfactory conditions. They portray this with the use of colors and images. They make the awful stench of the streets apparent through the use of images. Dead fish, human feces, vomit, blood, and grime on the overcrowded streets are shown to portray the living conditions and the smell. The clothing worn by the peasants portrays these conditions as well. They are filthy and tattered and droll in color. These images appeal to the audience’s pathos in order to invoke sympathy within the audience.

The film even portrays the main character’s incredible sense of smell through images. Empowering scents are represented by bright colors in comparison to the dark colors of the streets. When Jean-Baptiste goes into town for the first time and goes by a perfume shop, the shop is glowing with color. Also when Jean-Baptiste nears a woman with an overpowering smell, she is almost glowing and is wearing light colors. This is a use of comparison-contrast; the contrast between the glowing young woman and everything else insinuates that she is of more importance to Jean-Baptiste.

Another argument that the film makes is that scents can be overwhelming to Jean-Baptiste. When Jean-Baptiste goes somewhere new, like the market, he is overpowered by scents; he cannot get enough of them. He has to smell everything. When he passes a young woman with an overpowering scent he can’t stop smelling her and stalks her. His lack of control and intensity for scents leads to his demise.

In the beginning of the film when Jean-Baptiste’s mother leaves him to die, the town people scream out “murderer” and she is hung. This is foreshadowing that Jean-Baptiste is going to murder someone and might be hung as well for punishment. Jean-Baptiste’s strength is also shown throughout the film. He survives on the filthy streets when his mother leaves him to die, and he survives when the children try to strangle him when he is an infant. Also when he tries to muffle the young woman’s cries, he ends up suffocating her by accident.