![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pan's Labyrinth smells funny.
I saw Pan's Labyrinth tonight. I won't go into the movie itself other than to say it was very, very good, from casting and acting to effects to plot to music. Very much worth seeing.
And very disturbing.
Very, very disturbing. And keep in mind, my threshold for "disturbing" is pretty damn high. Although this was an entirely different style of disturbing from the kind I'm used to.
That aside, I had a really interesting moviegoing experience -- and the movie was only half of it.
Travis and I were a little late to the theatre and there wern't seats together, so we ended up standing in the back, leaning on a little short wall back there. There was an older man sitting in the very back row (which, incidentally had two seats, while the row in front of him had an empty seat, and his jacket was the only occupant of the seat next to him). This man... smelled. Not a bad smell. Not by any means. But he definitely had a distinct scent that was completely alien to me. (Travis didn't smell it and he was right next to me, but I'm told my nose is sensitive.)
The thing about smell is that it's the most primal of our senses. It's the only kind of sensory input that's wired directly to the brain without first passing through oodles of neurological filters. Smells offer the most immediate access to memory, and they are also one of the primary indicators of hominess -- familiar smells, the smell of your home, mean security, comfort, and safety.
However, the entire time I was watching this movie, none of which was very comforting or homy, I was smelling this completely alien smell. And since the man was also watching the movie and shuffling around at the proper times and feeling scared or excited at the proper times, his smell varied in intensity and flavour with the movie.
All of which made me feel distintcly... not at home. Usually in a mvoie theatre you can sink into the familiar, comfortable non-sensation of staring at the screen and letting yourself go. However, for this highly disturbing movie, my back-brain kept trying to tell me -- listen! Something's not right! This is unfamilair! Something feels different! You're not in a safe place!.
In conclusion, this helped the movie to scare the SHIT out of me. It was very surreal and fantastic.
And very disturbing.
Very, very disturbing. And keep in mind, my threshold for "disturbing" is pretty damn high. Although this was an entirely different style of disturbing from the kind I'm used to.
That aside, I had a really interesting moviegoing experience -- and the movie was only half of it.
Travis and I were a little late to the theatre and there wern't seats together, so we ended up standing in the back, leaning on a little short wall back there. There was an older man sitting in the very back row (which, incidentally had two seats, while the row in front of him had an empty seat, and his jacket was the only occupant of the seat next to him). This man... smelled. Not a bad smell. Not by any means. But he definitely had a distinct scent that was completely alien to me. (Travis didn't smell it and he was right next to me, but I'm told my nose is sensitive.)
The thing about smell is that it's the most primal of our senses. It's the only kind of sensory input that's wired directly to the brain without first passing through oodles of neurological filters. Smells offer the most immediate access to memory, and they are also one of the primary indicators of hominess -- familiar smells, the smell of your home, mean security, comfort, and safety.
However, the entire time I was watching this movie, none of which was very comforting or homy, I was smelling this completely alien smell. And since the man was also watching the movie and shuffling around at the proper times and feeling scared or excited at the proper times, his smell varied in intensity and flavour with the movie.
All of which made me feel distintcly... not at home. Usually in a mvoie theatre you can sink into the familiar, comfortable non-sensation of staring at the screen and letting yourself go. However, for this highly disturbing movie, my back-brain kept trying to tell me -- listen! Something's not right! This is unfamilair! Something feels different! You're not in a safe place!.
In conclusion, this helped the movie to scare the SHIT out of me. It was very surreal and fantastic.