Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

[StevePulaski]

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Directed by: Tom Tykwer

Ben Whishaw has an impeccable sense of smell and a growing obsession in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Rating: ★★★½

Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer features one of the ugliest opening sequences I've yet to see. Adapted from Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel, the film drops us into a gray and grimy portrait of 18th century France; a fish-market in particular. A woman — drenched in bloody entrails — is slicing the heads off fish when she falls to her knees and gives birth to a boy, who falls into rotting carcasses. She is billed a murderer and executed while her baby, through nothing short of a miracle, somehow lives.

A rough life it is for Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), who is sent to an orphanage where fellow children try and smother him and is later exchanged by the house-mother and turned into a slave. Grenouille possesses one extraordinary quality: he has a superhuman sense of smell, although he has no scent of his own.

Grenouille eventually breaks free from the shackles and lives his life appropriately as an outcast with a peculiar gift. A young woman (Karoline Herfurth) selling fruit on the busy streets of France inadvertently introduces him to smells that aren't as rancid as his surroundings. He becomes so transfixed by her scent that he sets out to capture smells of any and everything. He links up with Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), a decorated perfumer, and whips up aromatic concoctions with ease, as if he's following an age-old family recipe. That gift soon manifests itself into a murderous obsession, causing great panic amongst the townspeople, namely the wealthy Richis (Alan Rickman), who fears his young daughter (Rachel Hurd-Wood) is ripe to be Grenouille's next victim.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a paradoxically ugly movie. While a noteworthy success in Germany, the film eluded American audiences upon its release over the 2006 Christmas holiday (shocking truly that a two and a half hour, oddball period piece didn't resonate with moviegoers during the most wonderful time of the year). Even the DVD isn't particularly easy nor cheap to obtain, all things considered. Moreover, a film adaptation of Suskind's story is a commendable feat given that Suskind believed only Stanley Kubrick or Miloš Forman (Man on the Moon) could successfully make it. Kubrick reportedly considered his novel "unfilmable" and it remains another "what if" in the legend's unmade projects.

Alas, Perfume proved to be filmable, and its greatness is a testament to the diligence of its three writers, Tykwer, Andrew Birkin, and Bernd Eichinger (also producer). They dutifully spend a little over an hour illustrating Grenouille before shifting the perspective to Richis and the townspeople enlisting in a manhunt. Grenouille is a fascinating character, but he's ultimately more serviceable as a literary conceit. The trio of writers make him captivating by distilling him down to his essence of gifted yet tormented. The extent to which Grenouille is well-written is that his character commands intrigue but not sympathy. We crave a penetrating character study, which we're gifted, but never do Tykwer and company make him out to be a sympathetic figure, wisely so.

Grenouille is also such an introverted person that we don't see him hold many conversations, making this an undeniable challenge for Ben Whishaw (who would later go on to voice the beloved bear Paddington) in his first major international role. John Hurt does the heavy-lifting as the film's narrator, who spends less time detailing plot-points and more time articulating the perverted psyche of our lead. Whishaw proves up to task, as does the rest of the cast. Dustin Hoffman is an eccentric choice as Baldini, but he's well-utilized, entering and exiting the narrative at the appropriate time — especially as the latter comes as his life's work is complete. I too never tire of seeing Alan Rickman as a stern socialite, and the gravity he brings to a man with all the power yet stress in the world is deliciously deep.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer sustains the moroseness long past its opening sequence, achieving a consistent level of darkness and brooding throughout the subsequent two hours. It's a disquieting sit to say the least. Despite this, it's an unflinching examination of obsession; being cursed with a blessing, if you will. As I like to say, this isn't a movie to lift the spirits, but it's one that draws you in — almost like an intoxicating fragrance. You've been there. Man or woman. Walking down the grocery aisle, or at your workplace, and someone's scent wafts past your nostrils and you become, if for a fleeting moment, transfixed. Perfume bears a similar quality. I've read about special screenings of the film where stage managers pump specific smells through the auditorium to enhance the moviegoing experience. I'd pay good money for a ticket, if the opportunity ever presented itself.

NOTE: As of this writing, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Karoline Herfurth. Directed by: Tom Tykwer.