Violet Perfume

Colour, 35mm
Mexico, 2000, 90 min
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

Yessica and Miriam are inseparable friends, students sitting at the same desk, sharing notebooks, likes, makeup and perfume, as well as the worries and secrets of fifteen-year-old girls growing up in the anonymity of the big city. Miriam doesn’t know that Yessica’s brother Jorge is using threats and violence to force her into prostitution. After Yessica lets Miriam in on this secret she steals a bottle of violet perfume to mask the stench which has haunted her from the moment she was forced to be at the beck of every boy in the quarter. She gets away with the perfume but the sales clerk grabs Miriam, and her mother must pay damages. Miriam is punished with grounding and determines never to talk to Yessica again. Then she sees Jorge forcing Yessica to leave school and she resolves to confide in her mother. But her mum is rather indifferent to Yessica’s situation. Miriam decides that after school she’s going to get the perfume from Yessica: the former friends are about to have a critical confrontation.

About the director

Maryse Sistach (b. 1952, Mexico City) graduated in anthropology from the Sorbonne and in film from the C.C.C. in Mexico. Her graduation project, Si platicamos de agosto (1979), received an Ariel for Best Short Film, and a few years later she produced and directed the medium length movie Conozco a las tres (1982). Her first feature, Los pasos de Ana (1987), was screened at Berlin in the Young Film section. In 1992 Anoche soné contigo won the 4th competition of experimental films, Clásicos de México. She and José Buile directed La línea paterna (1995, awarded several international prizes) and the Spanish-French-Mexican co-production El Cometa (1998). Violet Perfume (2000) tells a true story of sexual violence against adolescents and of adult indifference.