Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel Perfume has been translated from German into many other languages and many fervent admirers, including a friend of mine who read it in Chinese translation and lent me the DVD saying that I should read the book instead, and Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick and others concluded that the book was unfilmable, in considerable part because scents can be described on the page but cannot be shown on screen. Since filming it defeated the brilliant and resourceful Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run; Heaven), they must have been right that the book is unfilmable.

I watched the film because I think that Tykwer is a great director, and there definitely are some great visual compositions in it (with Tykwer's love for helicopter shots largely held in check, but I hated "Perfume." At least, I hated the second half of it (my friend says that most of what I hate is not from the book, which is even more distressing, not least in that I did not take his advice to read the book instead).

Lord knows, the film is not constrained by tastefeulness. But what is wrong with the adaptation begins at the very beginning. A shirtless, shoeless prisoner in chains is dragged out of his cell as we hear an angry mob rattling the prison gates. The viewer who has not read the book has no idea what the crimes are and, tends to sympathize with underdogs, particularly ones first seen being treated brutally. The prisoner is being hauled out to a balcony above a seething crowd. The sentence, which is quite extreme, is read to the cheering crowd. The contrast between the skinny, shivering prisoner and the crowd crying for blood and torture further disposes the viewer to identifying with--or at least feeling sorry for--him.

And although the voice of John Hurt frequently intones ironic comment, the voice-over narration that launches the flashback to the birth of the future prisoner also stimulates sympathy for him. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was pretty much dropped onto the pavement of the (pre-revolutionary) Paris fish market by a fishmonger who had had several previous stillbirths and supposed this one, too, must be born dead.

The boy was born with a preternatural sense of smell--and there was plenty to smell on the fish market pavement, and he lets out a wail. This leads immediately to his mother being executed for attempted infanticide. Children at the orphanage actually do try to kill him (by smothering), but the infant and child have a strong will to live.

After surviving years of persecution by other orphans, Grenouille is sold to a tanner. Life expectation for slaves (do I mean "apprentices"? I think not) in the tannery is low, and there have to be many particularly vile smells, though Grenouille is drawn more to variety than what others consider good smells... though once when making a delivery and going by a perfume shop he is intoxicated.

After having gotten much more than his money's worth, the tanner makes a handsome profit selling Grenouille to a once fashionable perfume-creator Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) who has lost his gift--but not his craft knowledge. This time Grenouille really is apprenticed, learns much, and gets journeyman papers before setting out to the perfume capital in Provence, Grasse (surrounded by lavender fields--an environment made to be filmed by Twykwer).

Grenouille's quest is to distill human beauty. Killing beautiful women is in a way only incidental to this. I balk at the cavalierness of murders--with which the viewer is made complicit through being coaxed to appreciate the end (the elixir of beauty Grenouille wants to make) and or sympathy for the much-abused Grenouille. This romanticization (or at least legitimation) of a serial killer is what I hate. I also find the humor about other deaths in Grenouille's wake unseemly and tasteless at best, part of a celebration of death at worst.

I find the concept of the second half of the film repellent. I also think that having narration read by John Hurt (whose voice has associations with many victims of social contempt) was a mistake, the sarcastic narration another, and that Tykwer is surprisingly bad at directing crowd scenes. Also, he is in Kubrick's class of ineptitude at directing orgies ("Eyes Wide Shut").

Although I loathe where the film drags me, I have to acknowledge that Tykwer's visual panache has not been lost. There are many striking compositions--sordid ones as well as beautiful ones of Provence fields, etc. I also have to acknowledge that as the nearly mute Grenouille, Ben Whishaw is extraordinary. Dustin Hoffman is entertaining as the ferret-like perfume master, and Alan Rickman brings pathos and fervor as Richis, a Grasse grandee who attempts to protect his beautiful daughter Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood) from being slain by the murderer whose motives are opaque (since he does not sexually violate those he kills). Richis advocates trying to think like whomever the murderer is. Why he is able to do this better than anyone else would be an interesting subject to explore, but is not pursued.

I loathe the ending--or endings. Further annoying me is that the same substance does not have the same effects in the two.

Given the popularity of books and movies that make readers and viewers complicit with serial killers, I may be in a minority repelled by glamorization of serial killers. Grenouille is not really romanticized, though I felt that I was being made complicit in his murders (and rebelled!). Grenouille is not really an interesting psychopath and at least does not enjoy killing people, but this instrumentalism disturbs me, too (the banality of evil as Hannah Arendt famously dubbed the Nazi death camp technicians).

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The DVD has only an uninformative "making of" featurette. I know from previous DVDs that Tykwer (1) speaks impeccable English and (2) provides extremely good commentary tracks (up there on the level of Robert Altman and John Frankenheimer). I would have liked to hear what he had to say about the scenes I particularly loathed and would have risked having his persuade me.

© 2007, Stephen O. Murray




Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age