'Perfume' feature

Andrew Birkin explains the difficulties in bringing Patrick Süskind's best-selling novel to the big screen.

Dec 15 2006

Mrs Fibonacci looked aghast. ‘They’re not turning that horrible book into a fillum, are they?’ Mrs Fibonacci is a bright-eyed, dumpy little woman who runs the only organic shop in my local town in north Wales. She’d asked what I was working on, and I’d told her I was to start on an adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s ‘Perfume’, which, somewhat to my surprise, she’d read. ‘I read it years ago and have never forgotten it. Disgusting!’ ‘But you still finished it?’ ‘Couldn’t put it down! Surely they won’t be showing it here?’ she quailed, indicating the only cinema in town across the road. ‘Doubt it,’ I said, gathering up my bean sprouts. ‘Probably never even get made.’ ‘I should hope not! Anyway, how can you make a film about perfume – or is it to be a smellie?’ ‘Why should it be?’ said I huffily. ‘The book isn’t scratch-and-sniff.’

That was back in 2002, and I’d just returned from Munich after meeting with my old comrade-in-arms, Bernd Eichinger (producer of my film ‘The Cement Garden’), who had bought the rights to Süskind’s novel the previous year for a rumoured 10 million bucks. Mrs Fibonacci nearly passed out at the price. ‘Who on earth would want to go and see such a horrible story?’ She had a point. After all, a film about a psychotic serial killer who slays virgins in order to steal their scent hardly sounds like a potential blockbuster.

Nevertheless I was happy to take on the gig: I love working with Bernd, the material was an intriguing challenge and the money good. There was also the prospect of some serious research in my lab, learning the mysterious art of enfleurage on which the plot hinges. My girlfriend (now my wife) had just gone into hospital with a slipped disc, and her room was filled with flowers – just what I needed. When she awoke, she found half of them gone, and the remainder wearing little plastic hats lined with a mix of Vaseline and lard. ‘You see,’ I explained as she rubbed her eyes, ‘the fat robs the flowers of their perfume…’ But she was in no mood to hear more.

The hardest part about adapting ‘Perfume’ was not so much transposing the sense of smell as solving the problem of the main character. Süskind tells us that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was ‘an abomination from the start’ – a description I relished, since I always saw the film as something of a black comedy. Yet even abominations need to communicate themselves to be understood. Richard III gets to share his dark designs with the audience via soliloquy, but Grenouille confides in no one. Then there’s the problem of space and time: in the novel Grenouille spends seven years meditating deep within the bowels of a cave – without scent, without sound, without light – unfilmable in every sense.

But the biggest problem was that this was the biggest-selling German novel since ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, with a legion of fans around the world. I was constantly assailed by people who claimed ‘Perfume’ as their favourite novel, notably – and a trifle disturbingly – women. Oddly, few seem to remember the nuts and bolts of the storyline, only its lingering aroma; but they feel themselves to be defenders of the faith, and woe betide any filmmaker who betrays Süskind’s masterpiece.

Part of the task of adapting most novels to the screen is to deconstruct the storyline – and stand by for the gaping holes, especially in thrillers. When I adapted ‘The Name of the Rose’ for Bernd back in 1984, I would often make calls to Umberto Eco along the lines of ‘on page x you state such-and-such, yet on page y you seem to be saying the opposite’. To which Eco would invariably respond, ‘I hoped no one would notice.’ Patrick Süskind neatly avoided this problem by contractually placing himself in an exclusion zone whereby none of us were allowed to talk to him about the novel. Süskind is a somewhat cultivated hermit, who was not above writing ‘Rossini’ (1997), a glorious black comedy of a film about himself and Eichinger’s efforts to acquire the rights to his bestselling novel. Their various encounters are set in Bernd’s favourite Munich restaurant, the Romana Antiqua, eponymously renamed Rossini.

On my first evening in Munich, I had dinner with Bernd at the Romana, where he still thinks nothing of expending $400 on a claret to accompany the script wranglings. ‘Don’t look now, but that’s Patrick Süskind over there by the window. He’s looking nervous.’ Bernd waved genially to him, and I popped a quick glance at the sallow figure dining with a group of friends. ‘He’s afraid we’re going to ask him questions about his book.’ As we left, Bernd introduced me as the hack who was about to tackle ‘Perfume’. Süskind half-rose to his feet, shook my paw, muttered ‘Good luck’ and hurriedly resumed his crème brûlée, visibly relieved when we turned to go.

Four months later, I’d finished the first draft. Reactions varied, the main one from those who hadn’t read the novel being incredulity that anyone should want to make such a warped tale. A further year of sporadic work with the film’s director, Tom Tykwer, and the central role of Grenouille had become significantly more sympathetic, while the inspired casting of Ben Whishaw further helped humanise Süskind’s abomination.

I wonder if Mrs Fibonacci will agree.

‘Perfume - The Story of a Murderer’ is out on Boxing Day.

• 
•