THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK is very much worth watching. But it takes a lot of patience because it doesn't follow the template we expect for a film like this; I kept watching because it was wonderfully photographed, had a tremendous musical score, and I kept expecting to get really involved with the main character.Unfortunately, my involvement wavered because most of the action took place inside her head (as best I can figure) and as the story progresses she gets crazier and crazier. For that reason Silvia gets relegated to the role of The Unreliable Narrator. And when a film's makers get too involved in questions of What is real? and What is illusion? my mind goes to the question of What time does whatever is playing in Auditorium 2 start and can I sneak it?Silvia, played by Mimsy Farmer, is a work obsessed career girl employed in some sort of chemical lab. The exact nature of her work is never explained, but she's one of those women who never wants to take a day off. Whatever she does obviously pays well: she has an apartment in Rome with a living room big enough to play polo in.Mimsy Farmer is a blonde American actress of the Hope Lange- Vera Miles school who projects practicality and good sense. She made a second career for herself in Italian films like this after parts on this side of the Atlantic dried up. She kept my interest going even when the plot faltered.Silvia has a Dark Secret in her past, and her life gradually begins to unravel. The atmosphere becomes more menacing, but not a lot happens. It's past the one hour mark before the first irrelevant supporting character gets killed off.Finally there's a climactic scene where Silvia is confronted by the phantoms of the past and events seem to come to a resolution.Then (don't worry- I'm not going to give anything away here) director Francesco Barilli seems to crank up a whole new movie in the last few minutes so different in tone (both in theme and execution) that it seems totally unrelated to everything we've seen and heard, even though it does feature the same actors we've been watching.Imagine if THE KING'S SPEECH had ended with Dr. Logue and King George VI wearing fishnet stockings and dancing "The Time Warp" on the steps of Buckingham Palace. This movie goes off the rails even worse than that.And that's why the ending of THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK dropped its rating from an eight to a three.You can see for yourself if you're a Netflix subscriber- it's available streaming now.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black aka Il Profumo della signora in nero.Admittedly a very hard to find forgotten Italian film, this may very well rank among the weirdest movies Europe has produced. I went into this one expecting a giallo, but instead of black gloved killers and endless red herrings I got psychological horror in the vein of Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. Although it does have affinities with the giallo genre. A psychologically scarred heroine with a tormented childhood, very good photography with bright colours, smooth camera-work and subtle frames that most of the time work on two levels.The story revolves around Silvia (played by non other than Mimsi Farmer), an industrial scientist, with a troubled childhood who gradually loses her grip and starts having visions of a little girl, relives traumatizing events of the past in broad daylight, and soon begins to off those close to her. The gore factor is downplayed, the murders are few and far between but they are effective. The movie kind of drags at first, and there are several sequences that seem uneventful and do nothing to push the plot forward, while those other sequences that do help the plot evolve are most of the time baffling. It's like pieces of a puzzle that don't fit together. All the end does is show you, they belong to the same puzzle (if that makes any sense). The borders between reality and fantasy blur in a David Lynch-esquire way. It wouldn't surprise me if Lynch drew inspiration from this forgotten piece of Italian celluloid for his Mullholand Dr. All in all, I'd say that if you can keep your attention focused for the duration and pick up on the little hints and details that appear frequently, you'll find this a rewarding experience.Up until the ending this was a 5/10 for me, but the ending alone kicked it up another notch. Satisfying but not a handed down solution to the puzzle, again in a Lynch-esquire way. It's open for interpretation instead of spelling everything out for the viewer. That's a quality I love in films.

Mimsy Farmer is an industrial chemist haunted by tragic flashbacks form her childhood concerning the deaths of her parents….Is she going mad?...or is she the victim of a voodoo curse?…we are never quite sure until the vividly gruesome and savage climax. Magnificent cinematography and a memorable score make this a real gem of the Giallo genre.Barilli really shows his undoubted talent for capturing the wonderful Italian architecture and keeping us interested in the storyline too. This is not your bog standard slasher though, as nothing really happens until that brutal climax…(That I didn't see coming BTW).however this is a pensive and deliberately paced thriller that will live long in your memory.HIGHlY RECOMMENDED 8.5/10

"The Perfume of the Lady in Black" by Francesco Barilli is an extremely stylish and beautifully shot occult horror film that is often regarded as one of the most underrated Italian horror movies ever made.This film influenced the works of Dario Argento-there are themes and set-pieces that would re-appear,virtually unchanged,in Argento's "Deep Red","Suspiria" and "Inferno".The cinematography is simply astounding and the score by Nicola Piovani is genuinely creepy.Mimsy Farmer plays an industrial scientist named Silvia who is troubled by strange hallucinations.These images that seem so real point to a tragic event from her childhood:the suicide of her mother."The Perfume of the Lady in Black" is obviously inspired by both "Don't Look Now" and "Rosemary's Baby",but there are some lashings of grisly violence(the evisceration/cannibalism scene is particularly nasty and gruesome).Overall,this Italian baffling psycho-shocker is a suitably unsettling exercise in psychological horror with incredibly beautiful Mimsy Farmer.A must-see for anyone interested in Italian horror.10 out of 10.