Scent of a Woman?
Perfume Disguises the Odor of Death

Stanley Kubrick considered filming it to be impossible. Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, and Martin Scorsese were also considered as directors. Ultimately, Das Parfum -- a story of murder and the sense of smell -- fell to German director Tom Tykwer (best known to American audiences for his 1998 film Run, Lola, Run). In Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tykwer creates an adaptation that plays like a fairy tale rather than the story of a serial killer.

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Jean-Baptiste (Ben Whishaw) breathes in the scent of the Plum Girl (Karoline Herfurth) in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. (DreamWorks, 2006)
Directed by: Tom Tykwer
Written by: Andrew Birkin & Bernd Eichinger & Tom Tykwer, based on the novel Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Alan Rickman

Rated R (for aberrant behavior involving nudity, violence, sexuality, and disturbing images)
Running time: 147 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 7 out of 10.

Narrated by John Hurt, Perfume tells the fictional story of 18th century Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a "gifted and abominable personage in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages." Born in a fish market and promptly abandoned, his cries alert people nearby. The baby is rescued and his mother is caught and hung for her crime.

The young Grenouille has an extraordinary ability to discern individual scents from any object. His ability is supernatural, like something from a comic book. He can divine the location of far away objects by their smells, and is uncannily aware of his surroundings.

Infatuated with the scent of a young girl on the streets of Paris, Grenouille tracks her back home. When he appears behind her (inhaling her odor), she tries to scream. He muffles her cries and inadvertently suffocates her. To his surprise, the scent that had so attracted him to her evaporates with her death.

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The FilmGuru's review of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer from KTWU's The Aisle Seat -- Originally aired on Mar. 1, 2007.

This pivotal moment leads him to an apprenticeship as a perfumer in Paris, where he tries to learn the secret to "capturing" scents. His haunting obsession takes him to Grasse, where he learns the art of enfleurage (the process of extracting perfumes by exposing wax to the exhalations of flowers). It is also there that he spies Laura Richis (Rachel Hurd-Wood), a beautiful girl whose scent reminds him of the delicate Parisian girl whom he killed. Here is the pinnacle of his search and he soon begins selecting town girls for his enfleurage process.

Unlike in the novel, there seems to be no malice to Grenouille's actions. He seems to be an innocent, lost in a world of smell that only he can sense. Whishaw accomplishes something very profound in his performance, making the killer a truly sympathetic monster.

Perfume plays like an historical fiction, but the olfactory ability that Grenouille possesses is fantastic -- making the story difficult to believe. Nevertheless, the film takes on a literary quality. Murder becomes metaphor for the idea of capturing innocence in a bottle, and Grenouille is not so much a villain as a zealot. Even in the midst of his vile acts, I found myself interested in seeing him complete his morbid process.

In the end, the story turns from one of murder and obsession into a tale of wish fulfillment followed by self-loathing. Instead of making the story more interesting, however, it created a roadblock for me. The idea of Grenouille's actions going unpunished changes the tone of the film. This, along with the fact that Whishaw gives such a sympathetic performance, turns it from a story of a serial murderer into something akin to a fairy tale. It becomes "The Legend of the Perfume Journeyman," almost mythic in its proportions. Intellectually, I understood the change in tone, but on a more visceral level I found it unsatisfying.

Watching a film with scent as its center theme is difficult. The first act of the movie seemed to consist of nothing but close-ups of Grenouille's nose -- nostrils flaring, inhaling deeply. The image of the infant Grenouille smelling his surroundings is revolting, especially considering how awful things must have smelled.

With its themes of murder, sexuality, and the smells that surround us, Perfume is not likely to find a large general audience. While many may find it offensive, most will agree that it is memorable. The olfactory is one of the strongest senses, especially when tied to memory. This is a film that is not likely to be forgotten.