Perfumer Andy Tauer and filmmaker Brian Pera of Tableau de Parfums want to give away a 50 ml bottle of their new Miriam Eau de Parfum. Also included: the Miriam DVD and novelette by Brian Pera introducing Miriam, “From the Desk of Miriam Masterson”. Three runners-up will get a purse spray of the Miriam perfume.
How do you get it? Watch the short movie below — it's called Rose, and it's a little over 15 minutes long* — and tell us what you think happens to the characters Rose and Miriam in the year after the events shown in the film. More details below the jump.
What is it: a 50 ml bottle of Tableau de Parfums Miriam. Also included: the Miriam DVD and novelette by Brian Pera introducing Miriam, “From the Desk of Miriam Masterson”. Three runners-up will get a purse spray of the Miriam perfume.
How do I get it: Leave a comment, telling us what you think happens to the characters Rose and Miriam in the year after the events shown in the film.
Be sure to use the “Post a comment” box; do not reply to another comment! Replies to comments will be deleted!
The contest will be open through Friday and I'll announce the winner on Monday.
The fine print: The winner will be selected randomly from among the eligible entries. Don't enter the contest unless I have permission to use the email address in your reader account to contact you. If the email address in your reader account is incorrect, you might want to fix it. If you are the winner and you fail to send me your mailing details within a couple weeks, I’ll have to give your prize away to someone else.
* The film description:
St. Louis, 2007. When Miriam Masterson, host of the Miriam Masterson Show on the QET Home Shopping Network, arrives at her mother Rose's house to pick her up for their scheduled appointment at the local perfume counter, something seems slightly off. Rose has been forgetful lately and doesn't seem herself. She can't remember the name of the signature scent she's worn as far back as Miriam can remember, but Miriam is determined to figure out what the scent is called, and hopes to jog her mother's memory. She might be pushing too far. Written and directed by Brian Pera. Featuring series regular Ann Magnuson, Glenda Mace, Kim Howard, Stephanie Norwood, and Paige Hollenbeck. Director of photography: Ryan Parker. Edited by Eileen Meyer and Brian Pera, with a score by Jonathan Kirkscey.
I think Rose does remember the name of the perfume eventually. But after she does her memory get’s steadily worse and by the end of the year she cannot even recognize her daughter. And Miriam has to put her in a home.
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I think Rose is going to have to be put into a home, perhaps the one the saleswoman mentioned. And I think Miriam is going to keep looking for the idealized version of her mother in the form of an old bottle of perfume. I thought the scene where Rose makes Miriam wash off the perfume was very, very sad.
Full disclosure: I did recently win a sample from The Non-Blonde’s giveaway. It hasn’t arrived yet, though I’ve been anxiously awaiting this scent for months now (and was fully prepared to lay out $$ for my own sample when they become available to the public). So – I will leave it up to you, Robin, as to whether I qualify for this draw or not. 🙂
I usually find Brian’s writing to grab my heart and squeeze, and this clip was no exception. (The acting is excellent as well.) By the last minute or so, I was in tears. The image of glass wall between mother and daughter is so clearly symbolic of the difficulties ahead for Rose and Miriam.
One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s is the uncertainty of who the loved one is – in her mind – at any particular time. The ground constantly shifts. One day/hour/minute, Rose will be herself as she is now, an older mother proud of her grown daughter (of course she’s proud; she’s pleased to be watching her daughter’s television show). The next day/hour/minute, Rose will be a young mother speaking to a peer or her young daughter, or a girl herself speaking to her own mother. Names go. Memories disappear. Knowledge of relationships evanesces into thin air. The Alzheimer’s sufferer is confused and often angry, but still has moments of sweetness. As quickly as this confusion has seemed to come upon Rose, I suspect that the disease will progress quickly, and that Miriam won’t be able to cope with caring for her mother on a full-time basis. Within the year, Rose will be unable to speak or remember who Miriam is, and I think the name of her fragrance will be lost, as so many things seem to be between this mother and daughter.
I miss my grandmother Nell, who died this past December, six years after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She stayed in her own home until the last ten months or so, with her daughters and son taking turns spending time with her on weekends and two home health care aides during the week. She was restless and confused; my Aunt Doris found her tearing paper money into bits one day. Doris put Nell’s jewelry into a safe deposit box to prevent her throwing it away as well, leading to Nell’s agitation: “Where are my rings? Someone stole my rings!” And one day when my parents were visiting, Nell confused my dad with his father and became extremely upset that he’d brought Another Woman into her house. She threw a vase at my mother (then age 68 and no nubile homewrecker). Luckily, she missed.
Eventually her physical health deteriorated to the point of her needing round the clock nursing, and by then she didn’t remember who she was, much less any family member. It is a heartbreaking situation for anyone, but I can see that our family’s closeness and good relationships were of tremendous benefit. We have good memories.
This clip was so moving and well done. I have seen several vignettes from this series and have been so affected by them all. I agree that Rose’s condition will unfortunately deteriorate, as that is how the cruel & pitiless alzheimers works. However, I’d like to believe that in a moment of clarity, Rose does remember the name of the perfume, but sadly, due to reformulation, the fragrance available now is but a mere shadow of itself. I also want to believe, being an optimist, that Miriam will remember the saleswoman speaking of antique and thrift stores, and she will be able to find a bottle of the vintage fragrance.
The Miriam fragrance is on my ‘Must try’ list – it just sounds so beautiful. Many thanks for this givaway opportunity!
The months progress and Rose gets worse. One night she passes away quiet as a whisper.
While going through her mother’s finest clothes to select an outfit for the viewing, Miriam finds a selection of dated but still gorgeous dresses in the back of her mother’s closet. As she pulls out each carefully preserved dress, the long-ago scent of The Perfume envelops her more and more strongly. Emotion overcomes her daughterly duty and Miriam impulsively gathers an armful of dresses tightly against her face, sinks to the closet floor, and cries.
I think that Rose gets more and more forgetful, forgetting her daughter and never remembering the name of the perfume, and Miriam has to move into the old house to take care of her. One afternoon, Miriam heads to the attic to find a lost doll that Rose insists she must have, the doll of her departed daughter “Dot”. As Miriam sifts through 50 years of memories, she discovers a small box with a bottle of full perfume inside, wrapped in silk, and a love note attached from her father to her mother. She cries in pain for her mother, for her own childhood, and the love/hate bond she and her mother share, but also in relief for the answer she’s been searching for for years.
It seems that Rose has dementia, and so will probably continue to need more care in the next year. That will likely fall on Miriam. Rose can still dress herself right now, and that day was probably a bad one for her, so she may just need some in-home care unless things take a very bad turn.
If that memory is any gauge, Miriam had a very ambivalent relationship with Rose. It is normal for a girl to try and emulate her mother, especially if she sees her as very stylish and beautiful. It is not normal for a mother to say a child is no daughter of hers over perfume. That is a supremely painful memory, and one that has probably driven Miriam in all her success and fascination with perfume (and relationships between mothers and daughters) since. Why Rose was so upset about Miriam wearing her perfume and not her lovely dress or jewelry speaks to something, although what it could be I can’t say–unless it’s to do with the fact that her husband bought the perfume and it was something sacred between them. That memory is certainly in keeping with a woman who views her daughter (even unconsciously) as some kind of competition (their names are even the same, which could definitely add to that dynamic).
Which leads me to what I hope happens for Miriam sooner rather than later. Whatever her reason is behind trying to get this scent, I don’t believe it’s healthy. I think she’s trying to do one of several things here. She might be trying to win Rose’s approval by producing her perfume. But Rose is unlikely to notice or acknowledge such a thing at this stage and Miriam will likely remain disappointed. Or Miriam is (maybe unconsciously) trying to have the ultimate triumph over her mother by procuring the one thing she was so jealous of in order to have and wear it whenever she likes. Or Miriam is trying to keep what she remembers of her mother in a bottle–but with their relationship and the extremely negative memory attached to that scent, she is only going to punish herself. I hope Miriam realizes this. If her memories of the scent were positive the story would be entirely different. But that is a terrible memory at an age when such things stick and stick hard. I hope Miriam eventually understands what is driving her and accepts that. She will still continue to care for her mother, but she will hopefully be able to see their relationship for what it is (and was) and perhaps understand some of the reasons behind it. With understanding will hopefully come forgiveness and some peace. And I hope she devotes the time she is spending trying to recapture a past that probably should not be recaptured to finding something of her own, not defined by her relationship to her mother. I hope she finds her own scent.
I think there is a clue at the beginning, where Miriam remarks on her show that a perfume smells different on different people. If she believes that, she should enjoy the perfume best when it is worn by her mother, not herself, and perhaps she should have asked her mother to wear the perfume to the store, instead of, or as well as herself. As it is, she is (unconsciously, I guess) trying after all those years to appropriate her mother’s perfume, now that she is the stronger, dominant one in the relationship. I agree with Kimberley’s very insightful comments, above, that the memory of that ‘wash-off’ experience is critical to Miriam’s relationship with her mother.
I think Rose does pass away in the next year, in a facility. Miriam takes the perfume into the home so that Rose has some of her own things around her, and a member of the nursing staff recognises it and names it instantly. Rose is grateful, but the moment passes, she forgets, and she never tells Miriam about it.
After Rose has died Miriam goes through her things, keeps some, and takes the rest to the thrift shop. While she is there she notices some old perfume bottles and sniffs a few at random. And one of them is the one – her mother’s perfume. It is nearly empty, and it is stale. It really is just a curiosity, a collector’s item. As she chats to one of the volunteers in the shop, someone who no doubt has had plenty of experience in dealing with the memories locked up in people’s possessions, she realises that the past cannot be regained, her mother has gone, Miriam is not and cannot be her mother, and a weight is removed from her shoulders. She goes out into the sun and drives home, sad, but at peace.
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The notes sound lovely! And as I am already a Tauer fan, I really look forward to trying this one!
The movie touched a chord as my best friend is going through this right now with her Mother. She described a scene in a mall recently where her Mother started shouting she was being kidnapped by a strange woman (her daughter, my friend). Ugh.
My thoughts on what might happen in this story is that her Rose lives this way in slow decline for many years. Eventually Miriam does find the perfume in an antique store, the very same bottle on her mother’s dresser. Rose had taken all the labels off the original gorgeous bottle to show it off and decanted new bottles into the original over the years. The bottle in the antique shop reveals the name. When she opens it, the original formula brings her back a flood of memories. When she brings it to her Mother, she says simply, “That’s me.”
The hard edges of Miriam soften through the time she takes care of her Mother. She learns compassion, which seems missing at this stage of the film. It’s a nice arc for her character. By the time the story ends we actually like Miriam and can appreciate her strength.
I wish we’d gotten to see a younger Rose in the flashback scene.
I loved Betty, the sales woman.
This clip is heartbreaking. Both the writing and the acting are very well done. As others have said, I assume that Rose’s dementia will progress, and she may need constant care or more die. I imagine that the perfume “mystery” will continue to be an emblem of Rose and Miriam’s relationship, both its difficulties and its tenderness. And, I would guess that the film will explore Miriam’s attempts to understand her past with her mother and adjust to the new realities of their relationship and the loss she feels as she accepts that she is losing her mother.
Thank you and the sponsors for this generous giveaway. As Mals said, I planned to purchase a sample if not bottle of Miriam, but winning it would be even more fun.
I wish this site has a capability to hide/screen posts (the was livejournal.com does, for example) because I feel a little stupid either writing the same things that several more people has already written above or trying to invent something new – just not to repeat the others.
I can’t believe that the accident shown in the clip was the first serious manifestation of Rosy’s illness. But for whatever reason Mariam behaves as if it was. If Rose was supposed to help somehow with the search and at some point knew about that “apointment” why not to bring a bottle?
I do not like both characters (so, I should probably complement actors on a brilliant play): it seems that Rose was too strict and cold as a mother and Miriam now is too formal and too … proper but emotionally unavailable. But I sympathise with both in their today’s situation. From this point it’ll be getting only worse – one of the ways described by commenters above.
Rose’s dementia worsens over the course of the year and had to be institutionalized in a nursing home. Meanwhile her belongings were sorted. Most of the things were sold at an estate sale, and Miriam kept very few sentimental objects including, of course, the bottle of mystery perfume. At first Miriam does not visit her mother, as the dementia was emotionally tolling. However, 2 months after Rose was institutionalized, Betty asked Miriam about her mother and was reminded of the time where (in the sequence shown here), Betty had a breakdown when she remembered her own mother. Miriam vists her mother, who of course does not remember her. Miriam becomes upset and goes home. At home, she sees the bottle of mystery perfume and dabs some on. She reminisces about her childhood and falls asleep. The next day she goes and visits her mother again. This time, Rose showed signs of recognition, and Miriam realized it was because she was wearing her mother’s perfume. However, Rose’s internal thought process, her violent flashbacks, are expressed outwardly toward Miriam, who wore the perfume and triggered the reaction. Miriam leaves and when she was getting ready to sleep, remembers that scene where Rose made Miriam wash the perfume off her wrists.
Miriam, unfazed, decides to visit her mother with greater frequency, each time wearing the perfume, thus stimulating the mother’s memory each time she comes to visit. Eventually, the Rose is friendly toward Miriam and calls her “Miriam Rose,” because she associated the smell with herself, yet she does not remember who she is and thought her daughter was herself. In the meantime, we get a series of flashbacks of Rose’s youth. Turns out that Miriam’s father is not Rose’s late husband, but a man with whom Rose eloped to the disapproval of both their families, who left her for a wealthy woman when she became pregnant with Miriam. It was this man who originally bought Rose the perfume, and Rose still loved him in secret despite his betrayal, and wore the perfume to remind her of the happier times she spent with him. Now, when she married her second husband, Miriam’s stepfather, he doesn’t know the history of the perfume, but notices that his wife loves it, so he bought several bottles for her to make her happy. When she wears it, she thinks of her first husband, which is why she is angry when her daughter puts in on, because the perfume on Miriam reminds Rose of the betrayal.
Rose dies shortly after, but before she dies, she recalls a conversation she had with her first husband (the abandoner), when he was courting her. He had just bought her the bottle of perfume, and it turns out she had wanted the perfume for some time, and in her excitement, she exclaims the name of the perfume, “Oooh ___ ______!” in Citizen Kane “Rosebud” fashion and dies.
Sorry about the lack of tense agreement. Also, yes, the address associated with my account can be used.
Ok, I tried not to read the other posts… 🙂
Rose eventually has to go to a nursing home because she is uncontrollable, but Dorothy continues to search for the mystery signature scent. One day Dorothy decides to go up to the attic and happens to find a locked truck. She picks the lock, and inside she finds so many treasures from the past- letters, journals, photographs, mementos, etc… She discovers interesting things about her mother’s past… Before Rose was married or had Dorothy, Rose was a American spy during WWII. She fell in love with a member of the French Resistance, a man who was French perfumer named Pierre. This Frenchman made his own perfumes and owned a small perfume shop in Paris. Her mother writes about his cruel death and mourns over when he was caught and murdered by the Nazis.
Dorothy “googled” the name of the perfume shop in Paris and to her luck, it still exists! However, there is no contact information except an address, so she books a flight for herself to Paris. When she gets there, she goes to the perfume store and is greeted by a very handsome Frenchman who is in his 70s. She asks if he is related to Pierre, the man that her mother had loved. He is a distant cousin named Jean. Apparently, Jean was an apprentice to Pierre whenever he was very young. He remembers the woman whom his cousin Pierre loved so very much- so much that he had made a perfume for her, a perfume called Miriam. They had to reformulate a little bit because a few ingredients were not available anymore.
Sparks fly between Dorothy and Jean, and they go to dinner that evening, and they visit together the rest of the week. Dorothy loosens up quite a bit, has fun, and “let’s her hair down” so to speak. Dorothy has to get back to the US for her job and her mother, but Jean now cares for her deeply; she has the same deep feelings for him as well. He wants her to stay, but she must go back to her duties at home. He finds out her name is Miriam also and gifts her with a bottle before she goes back to the US.
When back to the US, Dorothy takes her mother’s journal and the bottle of Miriam perfume to her mother’s nursing home to visit her. Dorothy dabs the the perfume on Rose. Dorothy tells her that the perfume’s name is Miriam and reads from the journal. Rose cries a little at the mention of Pierre. She says, “I loved Bill (Dorothy’s father) with my whole heart, but he never understood why I loved my perfume so, so much although he always bought it for me… You know, Miriam is my name, too. Miriam Rose.” She smiles and goes to sleep.
Rose dies in her sleep overnight…
One month later…
Dorothy finds out she’s getting promoted in her job and getting relocated. She finds out that she is going to be a buyer (for perfume of course) in Paris! Maybe, she and Jean will get together after all… 🙂
The End
love love this. I am in the US, just fyi.
I believe that these story lines will all come full circle…I lean toward magical realism so I think that yes, they will find that perfume, but it will be somewhere that they never thought to look, maybe at that thrift store, maybe a child leads them there, and I think they will learn that it is NOT a high end fume, but something so ordinary they never would have thought of that one…and I believe that the perfume will bring some moments of clarity, but that Dot will have to face reality and what might be best for her mother. And I also believe that finding that perfume will heal them both and even heal the women at the salon, especially the one who lost her mom, and that she will walk out of the salon and into the day and do something wonderful, something, again, that she had never thought to do before, but will be life changing. And I think Dot will move on to do more with her show and celebrity ‘power’…and Rose will fall asleep…and be awakened by a kiss….
Oh, this was so terribly sad. Painful to watch, but so true to life, I could not stop watching. I wept.
I have a close family member who is in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, and it hurts so terribly. This film captures those moments of lucidity and confusion perfectly. Both Ms Magnuson and Ms Mace are amazing in their roles.
As to what will happen in the year to come? It is my own story, with Miriam having to make tough decisions about how to provide care for Rose as she deteriorates. There will be many tears, and I would wish Miriam not to have to be alone to make them.
The relationship between the women seemed strained in Miriam’s childhood, with some very painful memories. The perfume scrubbing scene was so disturbing. I can’t imagine wanting to ever wear that perfume again. . .or how Miriam could love it so much after that experience. It seems all bound up in that tangle of feelings she has for Rose–love, frustration, nurturance, fear, admiration and sadness.
In real life, Miriam would likely have to place Rose in a nursing home, on an Alzheimer’s unit. Private duty nursing is possible, but so very expensive, though I could see Miriam doing that for a time before surrenduring to the inevitable.
The *only* consolation is that Rose is not bothered by any of this. La belle indifference. Rose’s world will turn inward. Eventually, she will not connect with the outer world, and she will fade, like the scent of her perfume in an empty room.
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I believe Rose’s dementia will continue to get worse and she will have to be moved into a nursing home. Miriam will continue to visit her regularly, even though the visits are emotionally draining. Subconsciously, she is still trying to earn her mother’s love and approval, which her mother is of course incapable of giving, especially in her deteriorating mental state. During one of these visits, while Rose’s mind is in the past, she mentions the name of the perfume. Soon afterward, Rose dies and Miriam becomes overwhelmed dealing with finality of the situation and the realization that the relationship now can never be mended. Miriam never is able to find another bottle of the perfume; the perfume house that made it no longer exists, and it was always rather uncommon, not a huge best seller like no 5, so there are simply no bottles to be found. She continues to sniff the remnants of her mother’s bottle from time to time, although doing so is wrenching, because of the associations, but she feels compelled to do it. Going through her mother’s things, she comes across old letters, diaries, and so on. Miriam Eventually, after the initial shock of her mother’s death has subsided, Miriam is able gain some new insight into her mother’s personality. She comes to realize that her mother’s coldness and irrational behaviors were not her (that is, Miriam’s) fault. Miriam eventually is able to forgive her mother and achieve some degree of healing.
Beautiful , and heartbreaking clip . All of us will experience this scene unfold one day- aloved one who does not recognize us…
Rose’s condition deteriorates , and one day she wanders off . Miriam goes to pick up Rose and she is nowhere to be found . Frantically she looks around the neighborhood , to no avail . Law Enforcement becomes involved , and a few hours later Rose is found in an old secondhand store , sitting on the floor , holding a bottle of the mystery perfume .
The destiny of Rose has been given and determined upon getting ill. Nobody can do anything with it, the illness isn’t treatable. She will get worse and worse and Miriam will remember herw ith love as well as her perfume. Very sad.
Sadly, a person’s life and mind can evanesce just like their favorite perfume.
After Rose passes away, I think Miriam will continue her search. She’ll never find the exact perfume. But one day, in the corner of a thrift store, she’ll catch a glimpse of an unlabeled bottle that looks strangely similar to her mother’s. The bottle is a little over half full with a perfume that has hints of her mother’s signature, perhaps a few shared accords, but mingled with an intriguing, different, somewhat modern fragrance that she loves. In wearing it, she catches memories of her mother while still keeping her own identity.
I could not avoid the temptation of reading the above posts— so I’ll be guilty of a little plagiarism…
Rose continues to deteriorate, and holds the secret to the end. At the funeral, Miriam catches a waft of the fragrance on a breeze, and notices an old woman in a flowing black scarf at the grave-side. Determined to uncover the secret of the perfume, she vows to ask this apparent old friend of Rose (a stranger to Miriam), yet when the moment comes, Miriam is surrounded by well-wishing mourners and cannot catch the fragrant stranger before she disappears completely.
Now Miriam must find the mysterious woman, and uncover the past she shared with Rose, and the perfume that linked them.
😉
So sad. I think Rose will continue to deteriorate to the point where Miriam needs help caring for her, possibly resulting in her being put in a home. As Miriam struggles with her grief, she discovers that searching for the mystery perfume for herself becomes a hopeful outlet. Rose passes away a few years later, and in her searching Miriam has yet to discover the mystery scent. Yet she’s enjoyed delving even deeper into the world of perfume. However, Miriam’s daughter/Rose’s granddaughter, who is unseen in this clip, eventually discovers a beautiful bottle at a local secondhand store and brings it home to Miriam, who is thrilled to have the memories of her late mother’s scent and vibrancy returned again.
Miriam places Rose into a nursing home for her own safety, although it breaks Miriam’s heart to do it. Miriam struggles with the guilt and also the knowledge that she herself is aging. She visits Rose often, even though Rose has forgetten who she is and becomes combative at times. Other times Rose seems lucid and there are treasured moments of recognition and clarity. Miriam brings her flowers and gifts but can’t find the perfume.
Rose deteriorates and passes away. Shortly before she passes she has a moment of clarity where she tells Miriam to take the perfume. it leaves Miriam feeling like a little girl and finally a grown woman at the same time. She treasures the bottle but is afraid to use it, fearing once she runs out she’ll never smell it again. She lays her mother to rest and wrestles with feelings of loss and unresolved bitterness from past issues with her mother. She misses her mother and is angry at her at the same time. Miriam resolves to not let life pass her by and not grow old without a fight. She takes classes, she paints, she travels. While in Paris she walks through a flea market and there on a table she comes across another bottle of her mother’s perfume. The label is missing but it is nearly full and smells exactly like the perfume she’s always admired. When she pays the older woman running the booth she notices her eyes are similar in color to her mother’s. The woman smiles at her, takes the stopper from the bottle and inhales then says, “Ahhhhh! ……” and reveals the name of the scent.
I think the Miriam will finally have to put Rose in a facility where she can be taken care of round the clock. They will continue the quest for the mystery perfume; Miriam alone and Rose as she can. Rose will remember bits and pieces which will give Miriam hints to help her in the search. I think Miriam will eventually find the scent. Someone knows what it is. I’m not sure if she will find it in time for Rose to know what it is. The search will bring them closer than they have ever been, but Rose is really lost to Miriam already.
I found the film sad, and moving. I think when the film ends (the car scene) Miriam realises that in a sense she has already lost her mother. Shortly after she will have to move Rose to a home, and while Rose is not unhappy she drifts further and further away from every one around her, she no longer recognises her daughter. Rose passes away a couple of years later. Miriam never finds out the name of the perfume, and at last there’s only a faint trace of scent left in the bottle.
Now I’ll read the other comments above!
Wow, I love this film. So far, the Woman’s Picture project really seems to be hitting me on every aesthetic level.
I will make the same full disclosure as mals86: I also won a sample via The Non-Blonde, so Robin, I leave it to you.
This film brings back a lot of sad memories to me, of my grandfather going through dementia. I imagine that over the next year, Rose will continue to decline and Miriam will try desperately to come to terms with their relationship. I would also imagine that she might finally discover the name of her mother’s perfume, perhaps in an inadvertent way – like she spots the old label in a photograph. So Miriam will end up getting the information she wants, just not the way she wanted to get it (from her mother).
I think Rose eventually goes to a nursing home, and that Miriam never finds out the name of the perfume. The audience will understand that Rose was saying the name of it all along, but it’s such a common word/phrase that Miriam doesn’t realize it’s the name of the perfume.
And I’d like to add that I am not a movie person at all, and never ever get deep, artsy film ( or books, for that matter) but this little film moved me SO much. Unbelievable.
When I first read about this project, I wasn’t sure what film could possibly have to do with perfume, but I get it now. It’s that raw emotion that fragrance can trigger so quickly, more so than just about anything else.
Music can have the same effect on me, but there is nothing else that brings the depth of emotion so quickly as scent. This film captures that astonishingly well.
What a beautiful clip..
I guess in the next few years, Rose’s condition worsens. I think the search for that perfume will, for Miriam, be a life long search. I don’t think she actually wants to find out what the perfume is. If so, why didn’t she just bring the bottle to the store. That search is important to her. She wants to find something, some characteristic of her Mother that is hers too. But she can’t see it , or find it. I think the search for the perfume maybe symbolic of that bigger search.
Ok- all this might be waay off and I am probably reading too much into it.. Beautiful piece though, and I can’t wait to smell the scent Miriam.
Full disclosure here as well. I recently won a sample of Miriam from Olfactarama. I was wondering how I was going to afford a full bottle, since I really love it, so I hope I am eligible!
I think that soon after the incident at the perfume counter, Miriam faces what she has been avoiding about her mother for several years now: That her mother is no longer able to care for herself and must now be moved somewhere that she can be cared for. Soon this is done, and Miriam frequently visits Rose at the assisted living facility where she now lives. Worried that her mother’s perfume could get lost or stolen if it is kept at her new residence, Miriam holds on to the bottle for safekeeping. Whenever she visits her mother, she wears a small dab of the scent, hoping it will be of some comfort to her. Following one such visit, Miriam runs some errands before going home. While standing in line at the pharmacy, she feels a tap on her shoulder. Miriam turns around to see an older woman who reminds her of her own mother. The woman, with a sweet smile, tells Miriam that she’s sorry to bother her, but just had to tell her how much she loves the scent she is wearing. She tells her that it was always her favorite and brings back many happy memories for her. At last, thanks to this chance encounter, Miriam learns the name of her mother’s favorite scent.
The clip is full of repression, denial and self-deception – on more than one level. The daughter who was disowned in childhood, over a petty infringement, is now hosting a talk-show, part of which involves the election of a ‘daughter of the month’. The whole construct of the talk show is a compensatory fantasy in which an elected daughter, read validated daughter, is awarded her own bottle of vintage perfume. This compensates for an old childhood trauma in which a few purloined drops served as a pretext for the abusive mother to (probably once again) reject her. The pleasure the mother takes in exploiting her power over her child is evident in her face as she articulates, emphatically, ‘you are no daughter of mine’. Rather than being awarded perfume, in reality, she had had the magical elixir violently scrubbed off of her.
Watching the mother as she views the show it seems that she is complicit in this fantasy. Self-deceptively she identifies herself with the loving mother (played/symbolised by the role of Miriam in the talk-show). As she mirrors the encouraging maternal stance of Miriam to the child (the child-guest), she sees herself, as well, as the encouraging mother of the talk-show host. She is happy to assume the role of ‘mother’ to such a celebrity success and so seems entirely affirming in this part. But as she drops off to sleep we begin to see the repressed reality which, in flashes, is revealed through the clip.
There is also Miriam’s denial of her mother’s diminished capacities. Her condition seems already quite progressed and yet she speaks to her mother (‘Our appointment was at two’) as if she really expects this to make sense to her.
Besides the virtual reality of T.V we also have the stifled, artificial atmosphere of the high-end apartment store. The dialogue, as elsewhere, is conventional and neatly scripted. Even Betty, seemingly the most natural is unduly annoyed at Rose’s wondering about reformulation. There is a constant effort to preserve the fictions of the society.
Soon Miriam is reminiscing about the wonderful scent of her mother’s perfume around the house, about it being almost ‘sacred’ (why else would her stealing a few drops have warranted such a reaction) and how it was something shared between the two of them. The Hollywood allusion seems most apt in this context of dreams and illusions.
It is the disrupting force of Bettey’s grief, breaking the smooth social surface that catalyses the climax of the clip. The domestic violence of the past comes to revisit (through Rose’s displacement in time and space) and is laid bare before the staff, the customers and Miriam herself. Miriam tries to reassure all that her mother is not herself, but of course the upsetting thing is that she has in fact revealed herself – the self lost under the blur of alzheimers.
I have gone on waaaaay to long so I’m going to stop without even answering the question!
I think the daughter found the perfume somehow. Could it be that she recognized the bottle somewhere that had the label intact? I think the mom had to go to an assisted living adjacent to a nursing home. One thing for sure- I am sure they found the name of the perfume to make the story complete.
A full year later and Rose has passed away, Miriam no longer has her show. She has decided to open up her own perfume shop, selling her own perfumes. Some remind her of the illusive scent, and others are even more wonderful. She makes a matching mother- daughter perfume-Edt set, and it’s a big hit. The bottle shapes resemble Rose’s perfume bottle, but transformed. Miriam redecorates her house in more cheerful colors, but keeps her mothers’s bedroom set for the guest bedroom.
The class-clown in me is tempted to not answer this seriously, and so many before me has done such a nice job! (BTW, feel free to use my email, etc. etc)
So. . . Rose stays locked in the car until aliens come down and take her as a sample of earthling lifeforms. They scan her brain and fix her dementia, but she is stuck on an alien planet where they force her to sniff perfumes, trying to make the perfect scent. (Too obvious?)
Ok. . .How about: the daughter, in a fit of rage and frustration throws the bottle of perfume at the car window, smashing it to pieces and startling her mother into awareness just long enough for her to whisper the name of her signature scent and DIE! (Too melodramatic?)
What if the women from the perfume shop, Miriam and Rose get together and try to jog Rose’s memory by having a sniff-a-thon at home? The sit together in a circle, eat tea-cakes, laughing and discussing the magic of scent memory. Everything ends happily-ever-after! (too corny?)
Shucks, I don’t know! I’m not feeling wise or especially creative, but I did enjoy the film, even if it was a touch disturbing.
Wow! This is so evocative – and imagine meeting SAs like that! I think there is a bit of a metaphor here, too, with Rose’s memory loss mirroring that of perfumery.
It’s interesting how both Rose and Miriam are remembering and reacting to the same incident in the past. I think this re-enactment will continue over the year. Miriam will gain some understanding of her mother’s perspective, and, instead of finding her mother’s perfume, she will find her mother, even as she is losing her.
Miriam will understand better how her mother shaped her and how to grow beyond that in a way that enables her to transcend her challenges at work. Part of this journey will be abandoning the quest to find her mother’s perfume and, instead, finding her own signature scent. The “old Hollywood” scent of her mother’s time will be replaced by something transformed, as will Miriam’s use of her own talents. She will realize that although her mother and her mother’s perfume are gone, her mother is transformed in her.
Powerful clip. I believe that Rose will pass, and after visiting her grave, Miriam drives by a thrift shop and decides to stop in. Of course she finds the elusive perfume in the shop!
All that is lost, all that has been forgotten, can be brought to us in a wisp of a familiar aroma. In a story such as Miriam and Rose’s, it is irrefutable that fragrance, the greatest fabric of evocation, would be the most sentimental way for Miriam to grasp her consistently drifting mother, Rose. The threat of the loss of a loved one is a fear none of us grow out of, but only feel further enveloped in as we, too, progress to an age where we can grasp that concept, and approach it, ourselves. Miriam has her mother, Rose, in a tangible sense –but the spark of Rose’s identity is one that lives primarily in Miriam’s memory, enveloped in the scent of violets and oak-moss. On some deep, neglected level, Miriam believes that if she can acquire more of this elusive perfume, she can return her mother to the Rose that she remembers. It is the desperation that comes from love, that unceasing, need-driven desire to secure what makes us feel safe, what makes us feel meaning and purpose. Despite the indubitably tense relationship Miriam and Rose may have experienced at times, we can see that Miriam’s life has transpired as homage to Rose, who she places upon the vanity of her heart, and reveres as much as she does the unidentified perfume. I believe that within the following year, Miriam will begin to understand that naming and attaining this perfume will not bring her Mother back to her, and that much like a discontinued fragrance, our affectionate memories will truly need to be what harnesses us and grounds us in the security of our paradigm of familial love. Miriam will experience the grief inherent in unreciprocated identity; she tends to her wealth of venerated memories, while Rose exists in a realm of disconnect between a purgatory of familiarity, and the ebb and flow of mental deterioration. If Miriam is to be able to fully say goodbye to Rose, she must first concede to the idea that the search for her Mother’s perfume is the coping-mechanism she preoccupies herself with in order to feel like the connection between the pair still lives as it once did. I believe that Miriam begins to understand this process, and that she is living in the stages of grief in an inadvertent way. With the realization will come a freedom, and an ability to tend to her Mother as not an idol, but as a vulnerable human being. Through her show, Miriam will continue to honor the love and passion that she has inherited from Rose, and will take comfort in knowing that regardless of her Mother’s inability to connect memory to emotion, and recall the unbridled kinship that was once there, it will live in Miriam, who will continue to pass it onto other young girls who wish to foster that connection with their own Mothers. Through this year of processing, Miriam will be able to make the right decisions which are what is best for her Mother, regardless of the pain she will feel in acknowledging letting go. This will help her offer the true goodbye that she is afraid to proffer; as it is a sign that sometimes, memories must be enough.
I’m not going to read any of the other comments so as not to influence my guess.
In the year after the events in the film Rose’s condition gets worse and worse. When she passes Miriam contemplates keeping her mom’s vintage perfume as a keepsake and indeed does keep it. For a few days. During the few days Miriam keeps the bottle on her dresser she feels waves of sadness whenever she sees it. Sadness linked both to the fact that her mother is no longer around and to the emotional strain from her childhood that the bottle represents. Miriam realizes that keeping this memento that is so tightly linked with her memory of her mother is doing her more harm than good and she decides to give the bottle away to a local second hand store.
For a while the perfume bottle languishes behind a glass case at the thrift store. One day a single mother and her daughter are shopping there and the girl spies the perfume bottle in the case with it’s dramatic and glamorous stopper. The girl pulls and pushes her mother to look at the pretty bottle and oh how she really, really wants it. Her mother is slightly dubious about purchasing the bottle of what looks to her to be a very old bottle of perfume for a six year old, but when she is told the price is only four dollars she relents and purchases the bottle for her daughter. The mother and daughter delight for years afterward using the vintage bottle together whenever playing dress up, or tea party, or giving each other makeovers. And from that day forward the bottle that for one girl was the source of strict punishment from a stern mother becomes the catalyst for another girl’s close bond with her own mother.
This is just the COOLEST perfume project. I love the idea of a perfume created for a character and after watching that clip, I’m wondering: the Tauer perfume is meant to be the embodiment of the perfume that they are looking for in the store?? It’s the answer to the mystery? That’s so cool.
The movie side of the project is very moving. My grandfather was like this for years at the end. Like Rose, he would sometimes just blink and stare back when you spoke to him, and he had moments of anger and confusion, too. What a well written script!
Here’s my fictional account of what could happen next: in the immediate scene, Miriam will need to call a locksmith, and when the man arrives and tries to get into the car, Rose will become afraid and lash out. She’ll further withdrawl and not remember being locked in the car. Inside, Miriam will try to comfort her and calm her. Rose will smell the perfume on Miriam and become lucid to the moment, saying that she smells pretty, and ask if she (Miriam) remembers Rose putting it on her when she was a child. Rose will say how beautiful she thought her daughter was and how, as a mother, all she ever wanted was for her daughter to be safe and able to appreciate the little things in life. Miriam will say that she remembers getting in trouble for putting on the perfume, and Rose will say that wasn’t what happened, and you’ll see the scene again: Miriam accidentally spilling the perfume on the bed and the wooden vanity and being yelled at (gently) because it was so beautiful and valuable. Miriam will say that it was always refilled by her father and ask if her mother remembers the name. Rose will open her mouth to say the name, and then she will blink, then stare. And she will be lost again in the cloud of Alzheimers. The scene will end. The perfume will take a back seat to the story for a while, as it focuses on Miriam’s problems at work (I saw a preview that talked about that) and the Rose/Miriam problem of navigating that time after work. Miriam will decide to move in. She will be putting away her own stuff, struggling to know which mementos to keep (so many things that we keep have no real value but have sentimental value that can’t be expressed by a loved one with Alzheimer’s) and will struggle to not lose herself. While packing, she’ll decide to start just throwing whole boxes away untouched, due to the sheer emotional exhaustion of sorting. She’ll have a fight with her mother and end up outside, in the garage, drinking a glass of wine with smeared eye liner. She’ll be sitting in a chair next to the pile of garbage. Then she’ll start going through it, sort of sadly, and find a box of old makeup and there, next to the half-used pressed powder, there will be a SEALED BOX of the perfume.
What a sad clip.
Rose drifts further and further away into her own world and is eventually institutionalized. Miriam packs up the clothes that Rose will no longer wear–aware of their faint, lingering scent the whole time–and brings them a second-hand shop. Carrying the bundled clothes through the crowded aisles, she knocks over and breaks an ancient and dusty bottle of perfume. As her mother’s scent fills the shop, Miriam picks up the shards and reads the label. It says “Je Reviens,” but Miriam knows that Rose can never return.
A year later, Miriam finally chances upon the mysterious perfume in a thrift store and cherishes these few millilitres of bliss, the only thing to evoke the Rose of yesteryear. Nowadays, Miriam’s mother is this strange, child-like old lady, who gets her hair and nails done when her care home hold “salon days”.
No headway is made in the search for the lost perfume, and after five years – Rose is put in a home soon after the film’s ending – Rose dies. When Miriam goes through her things she finds a sealed envelope with a safety deposit box key and a note from her father to her mother, a love note which, apparently, her mother never found or read. Miriam tracks down the location of the box, opens it, and finds two remaining bottles of the mystery perfume.
Rose is moved to live in a nursing home and Miriam visits her once every week. Miriam’s search for the perfume continues, albeit intermittently. Sometimes she comes upon a very similar one and would wear it on her visit. Rose rarely recognizes Miriam but the scent would send her a reverie.
A year later, Rose has passed away. Miriam is at her mother’s home packing up her things, and dabs on a bit of the perfume. But the scent of the perfume evokes memories of her mother (and their relationship) that are more than she can handle at that time, and she goes to the bathroom and washes off the perfume, mirroring the scene from her childhood.
I may not be eligible as I’m related to a cast member but here goes anyway. Rose does decline quickly and unfortunately passes away leaving Miriam to sort out all of her emotions surrounding her mother. Of course Miriam is sad, but also harbors other emotions about her mother, some anger and dissapointment. In the mean while, the salesperson at the department store they visited looking for the perfume began an all out search for the perfume. She did this because Rose and Miriam’s visit to the store brought back so many memories for her as well. She got a hit from a retailer in France, a man that actually developed the perfume but had not sold it in the states for many years. The retailer asked the salesperson who was inquiring about this particular scent? It was only sold to exculsive stores in Paris at this time. The saleslady divulged Miriam’s last name, which was her mother’s maiden name. The man was curious if this could be Rose’s daughter by chance. Miriam was informed of this and finds herself headed to Paris to meet this man. He knew immediately when he saw Miriam that she must be Rose’s daughter, so many of the same features as he remembered them. The perfume had not been changed, just as she remembered it, but why was it so hard to find? Rose is about to leave to return home, when the man decides it’s time to let Miriam know that he once knew Rose, they were very young and had a brief encounter but he never forgot her. Miriam is appalled and shocked at first, but as the man tells her things about her mother she softens and is amazed at the person she once was. Miriam finds peace in knowing that her mother was once a very vibrant and loving person. Miriam is also thrilled to find the perfume and she and the man remain friends.
Rose continues to decline. Miriam struggles with the task of moving Rose into a long-term care facility as the gulf between Rose and Miriam grows. Rose seems to handle the packing up of her house, but every time Miriam approaches the bedroom Rose flashes back to the past–to other times Miriam “invaded her space” but also to times of tenderness, laughter, togetherness as a family. Thinking it will minimize Rose’s stress, Miriam waits until the moving day to pack up Rose’s room.
That morning, with Rose next door with a friend, Miriam directs the movers to pack all items in the closet and dresser, but tells them she will pack the vanity table. She carefully wraps each piece and puts them in boxes–leaving the perfume bottle until the end. The movers break for lunch. Alone in the room, Miriam uncaps the perfume bottle one more time to sniff and dab a little on each wrist, and looks up to see Rose in the mirror. Rose is horrified to see her room–her life–empty. Miriam explains (again) that Rose is moving to a better facility, one where people are equipped to care for her. Rose seems to settle down and asks Miriam to give her a minute alone in the almost empty room. Miriam acquiesces. Leaving the door ajar, she leaves.
Rose picks up the bottle of scent which is clearly almost empty. She uncaps the bottle. Looks into the mirror of the vanity. Dabs scent on her throat, the way she used to. Tips the bottle for the last drop to land on her wrist. When the last drop falls, she morphs in the mirror to the woman she once was.
Minutes pass. Worried, Miriam approaches the room. She can smell her mother’s perfume before she gets there. She calls for Rose. Rose doesn’t answer. Miriam smells the air again and puts her hand on the doorknob to open the door further, but through the crack she sees Rose on the floor and the perfume bottle shattered.
At Rose’s funeral, the clerk approaches Miriam and tells her she thinks she found the perfume. The clerk hands a bottle to Miriam who uncaps it and puts a drop on her wrist. She sniffs. And smiles.
I love this for many reasons… what a wonderful thing when artforms can collide! A truly touching and gorgeous project.
The car window scene is a remarkable ending and an indicator of what the future holds. Rose and Miriam will grow more and more emotionally distant because of her condition and Miriam will most likely never find her mother’s perfume again. But the innate connection between mother and daughter, as invisible as a glass window and as invisible as scent, remains forever untouched. The perfume, too, remains only a memory – as mysterious as the bond between a mother and child. All we know is that it is beautiful.
I loved this and thank you for this generous giveaway.
Oh, how exciting!
I believe Miriam will be forced to put her mother in a facility and that Rose will pass away there. I don’t believe they could reconcile, with Rose’s apparent illness. A real shame if it turned out this way. 🙁
What a touching short film.
What a lovely film!! I can’t wait to see all of this project. I think that within a year Rose is gone and Miriam will keep searching for her mother through the rememberance of scent. I feel so fortune that my mom was fully “there” right up until her death. I miss her everyday, but I imagine it would be agonizing to lose her a tiny bit at a time. My heart goes out to all NST’ers who live through that prolonged death.
Rose’s condition quickly deteriorates until Miriam is forced to put her in a nursing home.
Driven by grief over her mother’s health, Miriam’s search quickly becomes manic and desperate. She fells the urgency to hold on to the good moments all the more as she watches what used to be her mother slipping away.
Months later, Miriam’s dresser is so overflowing with samples that she feels obliged to hide them away when she has company. She has two niche shops on speed dial, and has fallen for several perfumes along the way that remind her vaguely of Rose’s signature.
But none of them are. Quite. It.
Until one day she finds an old receipt for a bottle of Miss Dior in one of the pockets of her father’s jacket while cleaning out the attic.
Of course! She rushes to her favorite department store and wonders how she could have missed the obvious – the 1940s classic from a house that had created a few of her other favorites.
She goes to the Dior counter and lifts the bottle up to her nose.
The bitter top note feels like a slap in the face on a Monday morning, when you’re hung over and missing the sunshine.
Miriam goes back to her drawers, and the samples and the search.
Years later, she still hasn’t found anything similar to the warmness that enveloped her whenever she put on the last precious drops of her mother’s signature.
With each new perfume she comes to love, she finds comfort when some share the beauty of her mother’s favorite scent. But none are able to mimic it exactly.
Years later, on a rainy lunch hour, she wonders into a thrift store to lift her spirits by getting a few cheap paperbacks. When she sees a vintage bottle of Miss Dior amid old ashtrays with beer logos and candle holders, she feels a sudden pang of loneliness that leaves her breathless.
She lifts the bottle and inhales deeply, closing her eyes and growing oblivious to the ringing cash register and teenagers arguing in the fitting room.
Memories awaken that she didn’t even know lay asleep – the last Christmas before she went away to college, the time she first noticed the wrinkles under her mother’s eyes, the bath she made her take when she had chickenpox.
She smiled to herself and put the bottle down, then quickly set aside the paperbacks as she rushed towards the exit.