Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Film Review

Torn from the pages of German novelist Patrick Suskind's genre crossing novel of the same name, Perfume is an uncharacterisable, unforgettable and ultimately disturbing thriller from fellow German and Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer.

Crossing the boundaries of the supernatural and surreal, and occasionally lulling into mild horror and erotica, the film is led by the least filmed of the five human senses: smell.

In 18th Century France, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) is sentenced to a brutal execution for multiple murders, the young man now a focus of both deathly retribution at the hands of authority and the baying mobs outside the court house. Narrated by John Hurt, we track back to Grenouille's origins and the path that has led to him being condemned.

Born in the filthy slops of a Paris marketplace, an unwanted illegitimate son to a fishmonger back at her stall within moments of birthing, Grenouille is sent to a local orphanage. Resisiting death from the start, Grenouille survives and discovers he has an incredible talent: an almost supernatural sense of smell, able to identify the contents of unseen ponds by scent alone. An other quirk of his reality is revealed: the tragic consequences of parting company with him for those around. Grenouille is sold to a hide tanner, allowing him to discover more of the poverty ridden, disgusting streets of the largest city in Europe. During his delivery runs for local businesses, Grenouille becomes transfixed by a girl selling plumbs (Karoline Herfuth), following her throughout the back streets and alleys, intoxicated by her scent. Their final encounter proves deadly, Grenouille's desperate enthusiasm accidentally killing the girl.

Heartbroken in the knowledge he will never experience this smell again, Grenouille seeks out ageing, out of touch perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman). Baldini is a shell of his former self, tending a shop never entered, and failing in his efforts to work out the ingredients of a new, highly popular perfume from a rival. Grenouille, delivering hides, works his way into Baldini's shop and earns an improptu trial, successfuly decoding the perfume's contents. He offers the Italian a deal: Grenouille, short on technical know how but boasting the best nose in France, will create new perfumes that will rejuvenate Baldini's business; In exchange, Baldini must teach Grenouille the art of distilling scents. After being blown away by the upstart's sample, Baldini agrees and buys Grenouille off the tanner.

While the pair work together on new products, giving Baldini a new lease of life, the venerable master teaches servant the ways of preserving. With his new found knowledge, Grenouille begins 'experimenting', going to immoral lengths in his efforts to capture scents. Animal lovers in particular will not approve of his methods. Eventually, after recovering from a bout of ill health, Grenouille convinces Baldini to let him visit Grasse, a paradise town in the countryside boasting some of the most wonderful smells in Europe, essentially on a collecting exercise. Baldini agrees, and with papers in hands, Grenouille's mission begins. He now intends to create the greatest perfume the world has ever smelled, one of extreme emotional potency.

Upon his arrival, Grenouille has no interest in chasing for flowers and wildlife, instead seeing women as being the carriers he needs. Unable to acquire their scent willingly, he begins a series of murders in order to meet his goals and fill his twelve beakers. Grasse turns into a state of dissaray as the killings go on, with only the bereaved local Governor Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman) understanding the significance of the deaths. But Richis's fervour for catching the monster is beset by his conviction that his daughter Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood) will surely be among the chosen. Little can you predict or fully understand the climax of these events.

Approaching Perfume, it is almost impossible to comprehend the spell created by Tykwer's vision and execution. In a wonderfully reconstructed post-renaissance France, the tale is played out like a folk legend, with lapses in logic and realism strangely improving the aptmosphere and gravitas of the story. With the director co-writing and co-composing the wonderful score, he traps the viewers in a demi-world created by beautiful cinematography and perfectly planned pacing, with some scenes lengthy but neccessarily so to impart significance and emotional purpose, while the more Hollywood but ultimately irrelevant murders are almost skimmed over in pursuit of that which matters. It's in a trance like state that you enter the final twenty minutes, and a stupour that sees you exit them as the credits roll.

Ben Whishaw, as the almost silent and fatally obssessed Grenouille, is superb here, bringing a childlike naivety to a monstorous part with his eyes, mumbled words and pensive body language, almost creating sympathy for a truly extraordinary but frankly dangerous man. Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman shine in significant and wordy parts, although both have about twenty minutes of screen time each, while alot of stock is put in bit part players portrayed by unknowns. This isn't a character piece, instead putting storytelling ahead of all else and allowing the people within it to become a means to an end.

Tykwer has no qualms about getting his hands dirty in the small details, from the harrowing start to his life that Grenouille endures, all the way through to the uncompromising end results of his mission, a scene that will live long in the memory and is one of the most original, unfathonable sequences put on film. Even the conclusion, almost swimming in symbolism and campfire sensationalist endgames, finds a way to both make sense in the greater sense of things as well as shock, a full circle completing a brief, spectacular life. There's an air of unsettling unreality throughout the piece, with no one scene proving particularly disturbing, but rather the whole film possessing a dreamlike quality which makes it impossible for you to be fully comfortable, yet refuses to let you be anything other than spellbound.

Fascinating and intoxicating, Perfume is perhaps one of the most original films of the 21st Century, and certainly one of the most unforgetable. What Tykwer does here isn't simply bringing a story into your reality, it's forcing it upon you, for better or for worse. A stunning achievement.

9/10