A Tangent on Daniel Craig, Skarb, & Jewish Escapees in Forests {Scented Image}

Last time when we reviewed Skarb by Humiecki & Graef, we had decided to use, as illustration, a picture of Daniel Craig crying for photographer Sam Taylor-Wood, from her opus entitled Men Crying. With his physical appearance that can pass as Russian, it felt like a doubly pertinent illustration for the post about that perfume that is supposed to evoke how Slavic men cry (and which might have been partly influenced by the concept behind Taylor-Wood's artistic and psychological study.).....

In the second part of the same review, we also evoked a locale of that period that we felt was particularly symbolic and was conjured up for us by the scent: the forest as a place of refuge for Jewish escapees. We wrote then, "A resinous quality emerges that conjures up a witch's hut in a forest whose doorstep is announced by bunches of tied up herbs drying upside down. The area feels vaguely magic and enchanted but also dangerous. The forest motif here suggests also a place of liminal danger in reference to it having been a locus of traumatic experiences during WWII. It signals hidden executions and refuge places for escapees from concentration camps or Nazi raids (perfumer Christopher Laudamiel worked with historical photographies we are told, but we do not know if this particular reference was included).

Talk about Jungian archetypes. The other day as we were leafing through Entertainment Weekly, we suddenly happened on a picture of Daniel Craig in a sylvan environment and the caption indicated that he was playing, yes, the role of a Jewish escapee in the forest in his upcoming movie Defiance. As it turns out, the film by Ed Zwick is based on a true story and shows the flight of four brothers from Nazi-occupied Poland to the Bielorussian forest where they join forces with the Russian resistance.

You know now what to wear when you go see that movie. Skarb is the olfactive rendering of this period and turn of dramatic events.

(via Entertainment Weekly, Empire Movies)