OLFACTORY REPRESENTATION IN CINEMA: ep. 1 PARASITE (2019) & FRESH (2022)

 What role does olfaction play in cinema? 
How does smell portray social issues?
For our first episode of cinematographic olfaction reviews, we look at  Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019) and Mimi Cave's Fresh (2022)

Words & collage by Didi

      Since coming across the Instagram account World Wide Aura my eyes haven't known peace when watching a tv series, documentary or movie.

My whole cinematographic and visual media consumption changed after becoming so fascinated by the attentive and highly knowledgeable eyes behind the blog cited above.

I started pausing at every scene depicting any sorts of hygiene or beauty rituals, and so do with the set design.
Paying attention to how products, rituals and experiences of the senses are displayed, and the role they uphold in the characters portrayal and the plot, allowed me to develop a wider, more sensible and nuanced analysis on the sociological significance of consuming toiletries and hygiene goods.

My most recently watched movies using the senses (and of course in particular smell) are Parasite (2019) and Fresh (2022).
While Parasite has a more direct and readable manifesto on the politics of smell by displaying a Bourdieuian class war on taste and access, and Fresh appears on a borderline, almost quietist critique of lipstick feminist, both equally present in their peculiar divergences key socio-political analysis on consumerism culture and inequality.

WARNING: Contains spoilers

On class & taste : Parasite's olfactive immateriality 

    A lot has been already said on Parasite's invisible yet tangible main character: smell.
Most of the analysis on Bon Joon- ho's sensorial cinematography offer an already complete breakdown on its use and meaning within the film, so I'd rather concentrate on Joon-hos deliberate choice of not giving material space to smell, and rather opting for discussing its immateriality.

A straightforward technique used in visual media for representing smell is by strategically placing objects/products or clearly marking the topic through dialogues, offering to the viewer an immediate understanding of the biographical background of the characters or the settings.
Instead, Joon-ho risks by playing with olfactory landscape and class experiences through politics of taste and the phonetics of smell.

What does the Kim family's basement apartment and neighborhood smell like?
How does it differ from Parks' suburban upper class olfactory habitus?
The philosopher Hsuan L. Hsu writes about olfactory class disparities and experiences brilliantly in his  The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics, which seems to draw partially on Bon Joon-ho's multi awarded movie.

Many times the Parks express disgust (or to put it more diplomatically, unpleasantness) for how the Kims smell.
At the beginning they mimic composed gestures of olfactory obnoxiousness but try to stay away from voicing their dislike. As tension grows, their apparent politeness shifts into explicit verbality. We never get clues about what a body should smell like for the Parks. As Bourdieu wrote:

“Taste is first and foremost distaste, disgust and visceral intolerance of the taste of others.”

I've already introduced the need for a Bourdieuian critique of 'taste' within fragrance reviewing, but Bon Joon-ho's reading of the French structuralist adds even more contemporary depiction of class experiences around the senses and so-called 'taste'.

You can read never ending Reddit sub-groups on fragrances apparently used by generational wealthy families. On Tik Tok the Clean Girl movement (which we will cover more in Fresh's analysis) advertises for barely smellable fragrances, usually overpriced aldehydes, musky or green scents, because god forbid gourmand, resinous or floral nuances, you wouldn't want to be catched smelling 'tacky'.

There are untold olfactory etiquettes among classes, and Parasite captures the human struggle and obsession in finding within materiality a sense of inclusion and accessibility.
By never getting to know the specific laundry soap brand or product the Kims should start using in order to appear more socio-economically elevated, we remain excluded just like them from the Parks' lifestyle and Korean high society.
      What we can instead imagine, is the smell of the dirty water flooding unexpectedly in their flat, the humidity and acridity it must have left for long periods, the smell of Seoul and its overcrowded, conflictual lower class neighborhoods.
Parasite allows us to smell Korean socio-economical olfactory disparities particularly through its environmental segregation.

External resources on class and the senses

PODCAST 

Perfume on the Radio ep. 2: Questions of Class

 

 YOUTUBE

Hsuan L. Hsu Decolonizing Smell

 

ARTICLES

Common scents: how Parasite puts smell at the heart of class war by Siobhan Lawless (Guardian)

Smell Matters: A Critical Reading of 'Parasite'  by Lipin Ram (Engage)

What Are the Symbols in 'Parasite' and What Do They Mean? by Jason Hellerman (No Film School)

Class as Smell: The Universality of Parasite (Entropy)

 Class & Smell: What the Golden Age of Amsterdam and Parasite have in common by Holly Foxton (Mediamatic)

 Body odor class gap guided Bong Joon-ho's 'Parasite' by Park Jin-hai (Korean Times)

“The smells are more intense”: Bong Joon Ho on the black-and-white version of ‘Parasite’ by Jean Noh (Screen Daily)

Producer Talks About ‘Parasite’ Director Bong JoonHo’s Smell & How It Explains One Of Film’s Theme (KPop Map)

 

BOOKS & ACADEMIC ARTICLES

Pierre Bourdieu; Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

Hsuan L. Hsu; The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetic 

 Melanie A Kiechle; Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America

 McLean, K., Perkins, C (2020). Smell Walking and Mapping. In Hall, S., Holmes, H. (Eds.), Mundane Methods: Methodological Innovations for Exploring the Everyday. Manchester: MUP

Is Fragrance a feminist issue?
 Clean Girl trope in Fresh

       I loved Fresh. I watched it with Reggie and for both of us it was a pleasant revelation. It was witty with occasional douchebag humor and a certain 'je ne sais quoi, I don't care about some plot/detail incongruences' type of movie.

While it might seem a critique of modern love and female gaze à la Evans, Cave's cinematographic debut does not want to offer a conclusive socio-political critique.
It might look like a ferocious third wave feminist appeal for liberating women from gendered consumption, but is it actually?

When looking closely at the cinematographic tropes the women embody in the movie, the answer immediately becomes more nuanced, and unclear.

                        on the right: surely a Tocca, but which one? Bianca? Emelia?

Smell or more specifically fragrances are vaguely present in the movie: in fact they're not once mentioned explicitly and almost hold an exclusively ornamental relevance.
Yet, make-up, accessories or fashion play more straightforwardly within the plotline: see Chad's monologue "the women in our parents' generation were more into femininity... Cause I think you'd look just great in a dress" or Steve's "maybe you can freshen up" line.

But the ornamental choice of portraying fragrances is way more interesting than opting for the conventional format vocalizing the paradox of gendered beauty standards and consumption.

Two fragrance bottles appear throughout the movie: first in the marital bathroom scene, on Ann's sink side, and then Steve getting ready for a date with Noah.

Paying attention to the toiletry and beauty products of the couple, we notice how only Ann's fragrance is shown.
We never get to know the scent Steve spritzes for the final date with Noah, unless some attentive eye can get more glimpse than we were able to from the cap sprayer design.
       Instead, Ann's is clearly a Tocca (likely an Emelia or Bianca).

The recognizable bottle design and the brand marketing targeted mostly towards women, fits with Ann's put-together, full make-up face and carefully brushed blonde hair persona.
Quite in opposition to Noah's embodiment of 'clean girl', who appears with zero or very minimal make-up, oily hair and as we get told by Chad, 'not very feminine'.

Beauty consumption is not portrayed as a self empowering or emancipatory tool, but rather as a male desire/fantasy centered around a traditional depiction of overly sexualized and binary patriarchal understandings of gender and beauty.

The movie attempts a critique on neoliberal beauty/'self care' culture, lipstick feminism and raunch culture, arguing that men do not experience luxury consumerism as constantly and violently as women do.

It raises the question: can an end product owned by corporations based on exploitation and performative marketing be emancipatory?

At the same time, Noah's 'clean girl' embodiment has become similarly absorbed by the patriarchal male gaze.
According to the 'clean girl' aesthetic and trend, visible full face make-up has become nowadays tacky, fashion self expression via colored and diverse clothing vulgar.
Noah is the 'clean girl' and that is why Steve ends up developing sentiments for her. "She's different" is his main argument.
So the paradoxy to which extension rejecting the 'femme fatale' or traditionally 'feminine' presentation of the self can be a form of rejection and emancipation in a neoliberal society is quite hardly solvable.

Fresh leaves mostly open doors, especially in regards to which extent it actually critiques modern dating and binary love. At the same time, it cleverly shows how being a woman in 2022 can be still similarly oppressing with its constantly changing neoliberal beauty standards and structures, allowing very little freedom to experimentation and political dialogue.

PODCAST

It's a Man's Wold by Perfume on the Radio

Erica Fretwell, ''Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Felling' 

 

ARTICLES

 Fresh is a Mostly Unsuccessful Feminist Horror Entry by Stephen Silver (Tilt) 

A Biting Take on Feminism in Horror thriller 'Fresh" by Bob Strauss (San Francisco Chronicle) 

Feminist satire or torture porn? Fresh’s terrifying twist on the rom-com by Sandra Hall (Sydney Morning Herald) 

 

BOOKS

Love: An Unromantic Discussion by Mary Evans (2002), Polity

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women And the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (2016), Free Press

anything by bell hooks ( but particularly: The Will to change, Feminist Theory: from Maring to Center, All About Love)