Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry, 2018): USA

Reviewed by Yating Zhang. Viewed at AFI Fest 2018.

 Her Smell (2018) is talking about Becky Something, a 90s punk rock star, used her lame female trio Something She to fill the arena. Now, she is playing a small venue with her mother, exhausted band members, nervous record company executives, and a new generation of rising talents eager to usurp her stars. When Becky’s chaos and excessive behavior disrupted the recordings and the national tour, she found herself avoiding, isolation and loneliness. She was forced to become awake, reconcile her demon, and remembered the past, she retreated from the spotlight and tried to regain creative inspiration to make her band a success.

This film has a very strong underground punk rock atmosphere. Director Alexies Bloom presented the film as one of her most important works at the FIA Film Festival in 2018. The entire film uses dark tones to set off the bohemian rock music. Black metal (black metal/black metal) reveals a metallic style that displays the dark side of human nature. Music composed of noisy bass sounds, twisted guitar sounds, and vocal screams. The use of too many black elements in the movie makes the entire picture of the movie look unclear. And it is too fancy on the background of the props. Gives people a dazzling sense of sight in rock and roll life. And the film from the beginning of the three girls who celebrated and cheered for their success on the music road, and their real performance and life became a stark contrast between different colors and feelings.

Becky’s character set at the beginning of the film made people feel her love and disdain for rock. A true punk rock musician will have her own little world to protect her love and yearning for music. When tobacco, alcohol, and drugs appear frequently in the film, the audience mistakenly thinks that rock and roll are inextricably linked with these things. Some people even think that drugs will inspire the inspiration and creation of rock music. However, in the middle of the film, Becky caused extreme psychological and physical changes through drinking alcohol and tobacco and drug addiction because of long-term stress. This allowed Becky to use extreme methods to protect her music and herself.

Throughout the middle and the middle of the film, rock music, and chaotic backgrounds stimulated our brains, making people feel awkward while watching this film in a long-lasting state of excitement. It wasn’t until Becky was arrested on the day of the show that the whole film was changing in an instant. From the extremely frenetic and noisy rock environment, I switched to a quiet, warm little home. This shift is unpredictable. Later, because Becky’s daughter grew up, it inspired Becky’s maternal love and some different views and creations of rock music. While Becky’s best friends shared her new creations with her, the whole style of painting was no longer the madness, helplessness, noisy, and protection of her work and dignity in the crazy state of Becky.

The story of the whole film, the plot makes me very much like it. I personally especially like this kind of musical. However, through the polarization of shooting techniques, my feelings for this film have dropped a lot. Because the film’s front and back gap is large, this film looks a little different.