Directed by:
Tom TykwerCinematography:
Frank GriebeCast:
Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Dustin Hoffman, Karoline Herfurth, David Calder, Simon Chandler, Sian Thomas, Jessica Schwarz, Corinna Harfouch (more)Plots(1)
In the slums of 18th century Paris, a baby is born to an impoverished fishmonger who abandons her child in the stinking, rotten detritus of a street market. Passed over to monks as a charity case, they can find no one to care for the child - for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is no ordinary child. Grenouille has the extraordinary ability to decipher the complex swirl of smells around him but soon realizes, to his horror, that he has no smell of his own. He apprentices himself to a perfumer and quickly masters the art. One day he smells the essence of something so exquisite that he is determined to capture it: a beautiful young virgin on the brink of womanhood. With an artist's desire to create perfection - yet without those "ordinary" feelings of moral responsibility - we follow Jean-Baptiste along his murderous quest to create the ultimate perfume for his own adornment: leading to a rising storm of terror across the French countryside. (Pathé Distribution UK)
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Reviews (12)
Perfume is a work of art, a parable and an allegory, masterfully wrapped up in a beautiful, spectacularly attractive mainstream package. It is an amazing sensualist film about everthing that a talented person can do and, mainly, create when driven by love. I don’t feel sorry for Grenouille’s single victim; I feel sorry for Grenouille. And I admire him. Tom Tykwer brings perfect balance to the collage of drama, thriller and comedy, the sets are amazing, and the actors – including Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman – fully embody their characters (and that’s not even to mention Ben Whishaw...) and some scenes (the maze, the climax) are exemplary demonstrations of film editing. Perfume reawakened in me a memory of the melancholic student days of Branagh’s Frankenstein.
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A film, where even the closing credits have their specific scent. A scent both intoxicatingly sweet and desperately bitter. The perfume is a masterful and above all complex work, in which Tykwer shocked me with his precision and, above all, rawness. It is rare for me to be hit by such a rough film that matches my taste, but here a pleasantly exceptional success was achieved. It is not difficult to succumb to the magic of the film, with such fascinating editing and perfect musical accompaniment, few can resist. Another key advantage is the main character, who, despite their perversity, is strangely believable and induces almost guilty sympathy.
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In some scenes, Tykwer reaches the edge of perfection itself, but it fails to achieve a full set of stars due to a fairly large number of shortcomings. Primarily the middle part which could easily have been cut by about twenty minutes without doing any harm. This attempt at imparting a perfume just by means of a combination of visuals and music didn’t work completely, nor could it. Even so, in many scenes, when Tykwer tries hard, it is emotionally strong and stays in your memory for long after. I also liked the really bizarre closing third of the picture which could easily compete with some of the really big “weirdities" from Asia. I can’t say that Perfume is a great movie, but it is certainly unforgettable, and that means a lot. ♫ OST score: 5/5
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Tom Tykwer is very inventive and has a head full of ideas, which he throws at the viewer with an unprecedented force, and he managed to adapt “Perfume” to the movie screen as well as possible. If we add great actors and the truly beautiful visuals, the occasional plot gaps and excessive running time can be forgiven. A truly unique story, a truly unique film.
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This couldn't have been filmed better! Tom Tykwer took Süskind's seemingly unfilmable story and retold it. Like the author, with his colorful descriptions, the director also uses visual finesse to convey a subliminal sensation that the film medium deprives us of, and which leads the viewer's senses into a state of their own dubious confusion. With this film, there is no point in arguing about the strong implausibility of logic, etc. For the first time since Run Lola Run, Tykwer proves that brilliant craftsmanship can say (almost) everything.
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