Monsieur Pompone's Perfumery
2015 · 7m · France
Directed by Axel de Lafforest, Camille Ferrari, Florian Ratte, Yoann Demettre, Tanguy Weyland
Genres: comedy, family, fantasy
Tones: theatrical, whimsical
In a fabulous perfumery, the wonderful Mr Pompone must protect his wacky perfume secrets from the scheming Madame Pofine.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Five directors on a 7-minute perfume heist comedy is either a bloated mess or a genuine provocation—and honestly, the theatrical excess here feels more like committee-approved whimsy than the kind of genre chaos that actually surprises me.
Pompone sits squarely in the French theatrical tradition of absurdist production design and ensemble comedic timing; the film's formal commitment to visual gag architecture and its deliberate artificiality mark it as work aware of its lineage in fantastical French cinema.
The collaborative five-director structure suggests ambitious coverage, but what actually sells this is the vocal performance and timing choices—Pompone's delivery and the rhythm of the scheming feels like it either lands perfectly or collapses entirely based on one edit decision in the comedic pacing.