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Perfume - The Story of a Murderer (2006)

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5 reviews

Synopsis

The story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who becomes obsessed with the smell of a local French beauty and turns into a mass-murderer whilst trying to produce the perfect scent.

Movie review

From Time Out London

How to recreate the wonder of smell on screen? Tom Tykwer’s answer: don’t bother, and indulge in other sensory pleasures instead. His and Andrew Birkin’s adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s novel chronicling the olfactory perversions of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a fictional serial killer in pre-revolutionary France with a particular nose for young women (who here all look like Calvin Klein models), offers obvious obstacles to any filmmaker. Bar rare experiments in ‘smellovision’ such as the ‘Odorama’ scratch-and-sniff cards John Waters created for ‘Polyester’ (1981), cinema doesn’t offer much to the humble pecker, preferring instead its close neighbours, the ears and eyes, from which Tykwer demands full attention, even if he leaves a jealous brain demanding more.

Tykwer manages to send a tingle up the spine from the off, when Grenouille’s mother gives birth to her unwanted boy among the stinking entrails of a Parisian fish market. He has us squirming at the sights and sounds of this living hell, just as he dives straight into the visual horror of the years that Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) spends living in an orphanage and working at a tannery. Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic deliver a rousing score (to which Tykwer himself contributed), but not even that can save a saggy middle section when we can’t help but tire a little of all the murder and beauty. One of the film’s last hurrahs takes the word baroque to a higher plain as we witness a mass public orgy, which can only be described as the marriage between the desert sex scene in ‘Zabriskie Point’ and the nude public photographs of Spencer Tunick. It’s a film so sumptuous that afterwards you’ll feel you’ve consumed a very, very rich meal indeed.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1896: December 20 2006-January 3 2007

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User reviews of this film

simone elmi said...

Posted on Jun 18 2008 19:12 the 17 century based film about am a man that had been blessed with a talent a power over every humman being abnormal human being became obessed with a legend .His ergs and dire to make a sence grew more and more on till the bound was broken and he kill on rampage speacaly selected girls to make the one and only scent that had the every body in a lost wold for filling there desire .

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Gary said...

Posted on Oct 16 2007 05:24 Dear Woody,
In the end scene Jean Baptiste is viewed retrieving the bottle from behind a stone just when he hears the guards entering. I guess he didn't have time (or didn't want) to retrieve it before his hearing at the beginning of the film.
We thought it was a bit peculiar later in the film when he goes running after Alan Rickman and the girl that he has a tiny bag yet the next minute he is seen boiling up his essential oils in a big glass still on the hillside.

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woody said...

Posted on Oct 04 2007 17:59 One problem. The end doesn't tie in with the beginning. Where was the bottle when he was lead to the sentencing??? He was almost naked, and that wasn't a small bottle!

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GERRY SOMERS said...

Posted on Oct 04 2007 16:02 A VERY UNUSUAL FILM TO SAY THE VERY LEAST!I SAT DOWN TO WATCH THIS FILM WITH LITTLE OR NO PRE KNOWLEDGE SO CAME WITH NO PRE CONCEPTIONS.I WAS PLEASENTLY SURPRISED AS IT WAS ONE OF THE MORE ENJOYABLE AND WEIRD FILMS I HAVE SEEN IN A VERY LONG TIME.THE MUSIC IS VERY ATMOSPHERIC AND THE COSTUMES REALLY FIT THE BILL AND BRING YOU BACK IN TIME.THE STORY AND THE ACTING WERE OF A VERY HIGH STANDARD.I WOULD DEFINETLY HIGHLY RECCOMMEND THIS FILM.

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Ana said...

Posted on Jul 29 2007 20:21 Sumptuous indeed, loved the colors and the senses it evokes! A real piece of art !

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