Perfume de Gardènia

The film is set in a Brazil without identity in economical difficult times. The plot focuses on the couple Danieland Gisa. Daniel is a taxi-driver and obsessed by the police reports he hears on the taxi radio. Gisa is a quiethousewife who has enough of her boring existence. One day she is discovered by a film-maker of the dubious kind whopromises to make her a star. Gisa drops her husband; he is left alone with their son Quim. Daniel is torn betweenfeelings of revenge towards his wife and jealousy towards his teenage son who wants to join his mother. He has to dosomething.Perfume de Gardenia is aimed at the world of outcasts and almost every scene is about films and film-making.The film, that was influenced by the mood after what is known as the ‘cultural dismantling’, won prizes for bestdirector, script, actor, supporting actor, sound and art-direction, as well as the ‘Glauber Rocha Prize’ at the BrasiliaFilm Festival in 1992, after which it was put on the shelf for three years without a clear reason. Pedro AlexandreSanches in Folha de Sao Paulo: ‘Perfume de Gardenia is on all levels the most inspired of the “NewBrazilian Film”. In the second half of the film, in which a subconscious love trio is suggested between Daniel, Gisaand their son Quim, the mood of the world of the outcast is more urgent that ever.’