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Rating: "Scent of a Woman" is a 1974 film, directed by Dino Risi.
The plot is simple. Vittorio Gassman plays a blind man who is accompanied on a journey from north to south by a young soldier, played by Alessandro Momo.
The journey of the two, by train, starts in Turin, passes through Genoa, crosses Rome, and ends in Naples, and is the perfect excuse to show the viewer a snapshot of Italy in the early '70s.
There are several fascinating aspects hidden in this dramatic comedy. The path the two protagonists take is like a road that leads to the knowledge of the characters themselves.
Gassman lives his condition of disability with apparent serenity. His character is gruff, aloof, dedicated to alcohol, at times with absurd demands. That he is hardly tolerable is clear from the very beginning to his young attendant, despite a family member of the blind man briefing him on his not fundamentally wicked nature and specifying at the same time that he is rich, almost to motivate the effort to accompany him for an entire week.
The attendant relies on his accommodating nature even though he believes in his heart that the week, with such a “superior,” would have a bitter taste.
Gassman demands that the young man procure a prostitute for him, and in the meantime, there is a glimpse of a human and affable city of Genoa. The young attendant is as annoyed as he is intrigued and begins to want to know more about this trip. Never having credible answers, he relies on imagination and remains rather tense throughout the itinerary, where slowly strange suspicions take more and more shape.
The attempts of "master" Gassman are amusing as he, with sharp sarcasm, tries to wean the naïve soldier, pushing him to drink strong liquors, visit prostitutes, go to a nightclub, comparing his girlfriend to a high-class prostitute.
Then they arrive in Rome; a panoramic glimpse of the city and jibes at the clerical category. The blind man takes advantage of the stopover in the capital to visit a cousin priest, and in their encounter, interesting reflections arise on the gift of not "seeing," seen by the priest as salvation, because "lack" exposes you to an inner enrichment and a different use of perceptions and thus to a pure understanding of life itself.
Then they move to Naples, another snapshot of Castelnuovo and the Royal Palace, and once finally at their destination, where Gassman reunites with a friend who is also blind, there is a not-to-be-missed sea view from a typical terrace.
In Naples, the inner dramas (and what better place) emerge, hidden until then. But there is another type of drama to follow. A young Neapolitan woman, played by Agostina Belli in great form, is in love but unrequited, and then, the specter of death. I won't go further.
Gassman is superb, poignant, expressive, and believable in his empty strabismus, perfectly realized for the role. The common thread is the scent of women. They make no noise, but Gassman detects, the smell of young armpits, black hair, and when he perceives everything, he stops in a sort of contemplation that the viewer can only imagine.
Momo is excellent, with a clean face, shy and awkward at the right moments. The actor will die shortly after the end of filming. Risi designs it all with the right detachment, avoiding what American films often emphasize too much: exaggerated benevolence. This makes the film much more enjoyable than the subject leads one to think. The cast also includes Moira Orfei.
A film rich in colors, images, slices of summer daily life, irony, and pity that loses some of its bitterness in an accommodating ending. It inspires a remake ("Scent Of Woman") in 1992 with an excellent Al Pacino, but it’s something entirely different.
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