Movies / Movie Reviews

Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer

By Mitch Emerson
January 5, 2007 - 08:47

Genre: Art/Foreign, Thriller and Adaptation


Based on the bestselling novel by Patrick Süskind, "Perfume" is a story of murder and obsession set in 18th-century France. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) has a unique talent for discerning the scents and smells that swirl around him, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. Strangely lacking any scent of his own, he becomes obsessed with capturing the irresistible but elusive aroma of young womanhood. As Grenouille's obsession turns deadly, twelve young girls are found murdered. Panic breaks out as people rush to protect their daughters, while an unrepentant and unrelenting Grenouille still lacks the final ingredient to complete his quest. (Taken from Yahoo Movies)

Perfume is a movie that is hard to describe. It is a very, very strange movie. Well acted and beautifully shot but strange nevertheless. I guess the closest comparison that I can make is a combination of The Libertine and From Hell. This is a very dark and demented period piece. If you have a squeamish stomach I would recommend closing your eyes for the first five minutes or so due to scenes of a child birth and shots of rotting fish and entrails in the middle of a fish market in 18th-century France. Pretty picture huh? After that the film gets rolling and, if this is your type of movie, you can begin to get into the film. It is an interesting story with some instances of black humor such as the fact that anybody who owns Jean-Baptiste comes to an untimely demise after selling him, usually within minutes of the transaction. While not my kind of film, it has it's moments. I would like to apologize for the disjointedness of this paragraph, but that is pretty much how the movie made me feel.

The casting is an interesting choice as Jean-Baptist is Ben Whishaw, somebody I have never heard of. (After looking on IMDB I still don't know who he is. The only thing I have even heard of that he has done is Layer Cake and I haven't seen it). He is one creepy dude that's for sure. There is a scene where he is creeping up on a young woman trying to smell her and he is so quiet that she doesn't even sense that he is there until his nose is almost touching her neck. Enough about the creepy guy. What came as a pleasant surprise was the appearances of Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman. Hoffman plays the has been perfumer that buys Jean-Baptiste and promises to teach him how to capture a scent in return for rejuvenating his business. Rickman plays the father of Rachel Hurd-Woods character, the final ingredient in Baptiste's perfume. I loved Rickman in Die Hard and Dogma, and thought he was perfect in the Harry Potter movies and he does no worse in Perfume. He takes it upon himself to be the one to capture Baptiste and plays the father out for revenge quite well. The last thing I want to mention about the cast is that Rachel Hurd-Wood and the Plum girl are two of the most stunning redheads I have ever seen. If anybody out there can get me an autographed photo I would be much obliged.

This is a decent film, if not my kind of movie. The plot is straight forward and barring the first few minutes isn't very gory. Sure, there are disturbing scenes, but it is a thriller. My only complaint is the ending. I don't want to give it away but the last ten minutes or so had me going, “What the hell is going on?”. But times are changing and the standard Hollywood endings are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Which most of the time is a good thing, but the end still needs to make sense. ( Or scents, groan) This film may have some difficulty as I can't seem to figure out who the target audience is. And, from what I understand is that this is going to be a widely released movie. So we shall see.

Until you can get a bottle of Grenouille's perfume as a gift with you purchase of Soylent Green,
keep reading.

Mitch E.
mitchemerson@hotmail.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12