Plot Born in 1744, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw) is a young man with a preternaturally acute sense of smell, who becomes obsessed with capturing scent after accidentally killing a girl with an irresistible aroma.
Review
So many supposedly unfilmable novels have now been successfully realised that the word ’unfilmable’ has arguably been rendered redundant. Yet Bavarian writer Patrick Süskind’s 1985 bestseller Perfume provided its own special challenge. Not least because the author refused to sell the rights for 15 years, adamant that his book’s main theme, smell, could not work in a visual medium. He had a point, but Run Lola Run helmer Tom Tykwer has proven Süskind wrong.
Don’t worry, it’s not a Smell-O-Vision movie; there’s no scratch ’n’ sniff card. If there was, Grenouille’s (Ben Whishaw) harrowing birth — in which he’s spat out of his mother’s womb and left to die, twitching, in a pile of rotting piscine entrails under the counter of her fish-market stall — would be even more gut-churning than it already is. It’s in his attention to detail that Tykwer handles cinema’s inability to tweak the olfactory nerve. Almost everything sniffed in the film, from the nauseating to the delectable, is glimpsed in vivid close-up, cornering our imagination into summoning up the pong for itself.
A welcome byproduct of this approach is that Tykwer recreates Grenouille’s dark, filthy and, yes, thoroughly stinky era with relish and precision, making sure we view the harsh world of Perfume from gutter-up. And this is how Grenouille sees it too, clawing his way up from fish-market floor to a job as a journeyman perfumier in a Provencal town.
Grenouille is a tricky character: spending much of the film serially bludgeoning young women to death, he’s the villain of the piece, but also, given our insight into his childhood, a tragic figure. In the hands of 26 year-old English actor Ben Whishaw, he’s a near-autistic bundle of constrained twitches, a man gifted with a superhuman talent but cursed by an inability to exploit it constructively.
Whishaw commands the screen, even opposite Dustin Hoffman, who plays his hapless mentor with near-OTT flourishes, and Alan Rickman (like Hoffman, presumably cast in a key role thanks as much to his aquiline profile as his acting nous), as the father of Grenouille’s ideal victim (Rachel Hurd-Wood, aka Wendy in 2003’s Peter Pan). The only thing he can’t supersede is the film’s principal flaw: fidelity to the novel. Numerous episodes have been omitted, but still the 140-plus-minute run time is overly extravagant.
Grenouille is soulless just as he is scentless. He’s barely human, a shade almost, emotionless and cold. And despite Whishaw’s impressive efforts, a sense of why remains in the film’s bizarre, borderline-preposterous finale. Still, while that robs Perfume of true emotional resonance, it remains a thought-provoking triumph of style.
Verdict The odd conclusion renders it somewhat oblique, but Perfume is a feast for the senses. Smell it with your eyes...
Average user rating for Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
pretty, but i hated it .
hated it hated it hated it .
WHAT WAS THE POINT?
it's never a good sign if i can't stand the protagonist.
it was absolutely terrible, pointless event after pointless, random event.
nice cinematography, but is that all you need to make a good film?
it was AWFUL . It would have been one star if it wasn't for the stunning visuals.
... Read More
If you read this film, its cinematic adaption is somewhat limited by the fact it is based around smell, the one sense that the screen can't protray. However, the flick chooses not to make an issue of this, but by heightening the other sense (the soundtrack and use of colour blew me away) but actually heightens all your sense, and makes you imagine what Jean-Baptiste is smelling.
A powerful performance by Ben Whishaw (check out his transformation from Pingu in Nathan Barley), supported by a gr... Read More
RE: Perfume......weird... or wonderful? you decide
R SPOILER WARNING!!!
I watched this on DVD the other night and thought it was excellent. I don't know anything about the book, so came to it completely fresh. As for the ending that the majority seem to hate, it's unexpected but I loved it. It fit in so well with the fantasy element of the film, i.e. if the guy can smell scents over several miles then we're obviouly in a fantastical world, so I went with the flow and wasn't disappointed. The nudity and euphoric element of that final qua... Read More
RE: Perfume......weird... or wonderful? you decide
I thought the film was pretty strange for the first hour but towards the end I loved it.
he idea of the orgy and Grenouille becoming a angle like figure whilst he himself was doomed to sadness because no woman loved him for being him and also because he at last suffered regret in killing was sublime story telling and wonderfully directed. So true to life that when you finally achieve all that you dream of that you find yourself wanting because there is nothing more to dream. Brilliant. O... Read More
RE: Perfume......weird... or wonderful? you decide
Mu husband and I watched this last night and still not sure what to make of it. Visually it was stunning and the opening scenes were good and you could almost be there smelling the foulness.
The 'orgy' scene was odd and was neither bad nor good.
Overall it was entertaining if a tad long and Dustin Hoffmans accent wavered into panto territory a few times. ... Read More
I have just watched Perfume and how bizzare it was. I must admit I have never seen a film like this before but I am unsure whether I loved it or loathed it, what made me giggle was the fact he liked to murder ginger haired women as he loved their scent, and could smell them a mile of and follow them to the ends of the earth to kill them because of their smell. I wonder why ginger hair people smelt so different? and my second question being - dont all ginger people smell of twiglets?...heeheheee ... Read More
Perfume for me is difficult to summarize. I recently saw the film and the principle thing that must be applauded is the whole image, environment and setting of the film which has been brutally and beatufilly realized. So top marks for that.
I think Ben Whishaw gives an incredible enigmatic performance as Jean Bapstiste who, although has symphathy for his poor upbringing, totally loses any symphathy when he starts killing those beautiful women. Whishaw's performance is the only one worth mentio... Read More
Perfume was excellent. If u didn't get the ending in the square, then unfortunately for you, you probably don't know why Ecstacy is called ecstacy. have no idea why people jack up, or shove mounds of cocaine up their noses. in essence you have no imagination. I pity you, because you don't see the world; and I include all the senses; as I do, and you never will, because your field of vision is blinkered. You will go to your grave seeing, but not really seeing at all. ... Read More
This film made no sense to me at all! I watched the film, with high hopes and expectations after watching the trailer and was utterly utterly disapointed!!!!!!! This film made no sense and he didn't start killing people untill the end of the film which was crap! I watched it for bout an hour and an half, got to the big orgy part at the end (which freaked me out by the way and it was never explained) and I thought this film has to make sense at the end, but it didn't! It didn't explain a single t... Read More
Classic
Excellent
Good
Fair
Tragic
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