The Saltmen of Tibet (1997) Documentary. Four men take 160 yaks and walk for a month to a salt lake where they scrape up the salt and pack it into bags. Then they walk back. They don't have much to talk about except what they are doing. Pretty amazing to see, and puts one's own experience in a certain perspective. 7/10
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) When I read the novel Perfume by Patrick Suskind some years ago I felt it was a purely literary experience which could never be adequately filmed. I am happy to find myself mistaken. Critical response at the time of its release gave me the impression that it weirded them out, that the concept was too bizarre for them to like it. Not me because I like stuff weird - not just "look how zany or gross I can be" but "how did they even think of this" type of weird . I was as pleased with the unique conception of the book as I was the beautiful execution of the film. It's about a lot of things - a man who is in a sense an innocent in that he doesn't know the crimes he commits are wrong, the folly of trying to recapture First Love, and the underesteemed power of scent to affect our thoughts and emotions. 10/10
