Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Four stars, but a weaker four stars. If it weren't for Hoffman and Rickman, I'd give it a three, especially for the cinematography, which gives you a really unreal feeling of being "right there". I haven't read the book, so I don't know why, but I was bothered by the ending, which was so very bland. Moreover, films in which the viewer is supposed to root for the real asshole (whatever his motives for doing what he does) are always harder for me. (06/11/2009)

With Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tykwer has taken on one of the most difficult challenges, namely how to portray the sense of smell in an audiovisual way. Especially if that sense of smell drives the plot. And super-especially if the hero of the plot is a silent, ruthless psychopath who destroys young girls for his own fulfillment. And because he fails at this challenge, the film fails too, the entire time. And yet it fails with never-before-seen grandiosity. The ways of depicting the protagonist's abilities here only really work in the case of the vile smell, where the opening fish market, for example, visualizes the disgusting environment with quick cuts and zooms. But when he starts to break bread with the other side of the olfactory spectrum, the film runs into the problem that there aren't really that many universal scents, since everyone has a different idea of what is pleasing and beautiful, and so from the first act onwards we are downright inundated with all manner of flowers, petals, and accentuated colors like a commercial for scented candles. Then when the protagonist uses his sense of smell for a practical purpose, namely to stalk his victims, it comes across as a cool superhero ability again. The problems mentioned above, however, stem from the decision to conceive the novel as a monumental historical fresco, where the viewer can turn away from the unpleasant story and simply enjoy the period setting. Hence all the crowd scenes, the meticulously soiled buildings, the dozens of rotten extras, the hundreds of costumes, the panoramic shots, and the frequent changes of location. But for the plot itself to work, it would have to be perceived in a much more intimate, individual way. After all, we’re talking here about one man's efforts to achieve absolute perfection and beauty through extreme means. The monumental treatment may try to emphasize the universality of such a quest, but in my opinion this is impossible when the subject is a sense as distinctive as that of smell. (18/11/2020)

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. (25/05/2008)

If anyone should have adapted the book "Perfume", it was probably only Tykwer, because a book with such a reputation requires a director of his caliber. It's a slight mindfuck in places, but I think it sufficiently rehabilitates the good aspects of modern German culture. Ben Whishaw is properly disgusting, Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman ensured the general public's attention and Corinna Harfouch and Karoline Herfurth added their inimitable faces to the whole. (05/06/2017)

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. (26/01/2007)