Can a movie smell like cheese?

Sometimes it happens that, although cinema is essentially an audiovisual art, some films acquire synesthetic qualities and we end up perceiving them through other senses, in addition to sight and hearing. This would be the case with The perfect recipe, a film that stimulates our sense of smell almost from the very beginning. This feature-length debut by Franco-Swiss director Louise Courvoisier exudes different scents: the smell of tractor diesel and manure; the smell of meat cooking on the grill and the sweat after a night of alcohol and impromptu sex following a rural drinking spree; and, obviously, everything is dominated by the stench of Comté cheese. This last scent is largely the focus of the film: a young man from the foothills of the Jura mountain range who, after the sudden death of his father, takes responsibility for his younger sister, but, above all, is determined to win a cheese competition for small producers in the region.

The perfect recipe It has these sensorial qualities thanks to a series of aesthetic decisions made by Courvoisier: the actors who appear in the film are not professionals, and the experiences of the hormonal turmoil the director describes are inspired by her own life. So there's an almost neorealist element and unnecessary research because, basically, it's a film that draws on a firsthand sentimental education. And the scent that permeates the entire film is... real.