In 1980, David Lynch released his magnificent film The Elephant Man, prompting the Academy of Motion Picture Arts to create the Oscar category “Best Make-Up” for the following awards season. After viewing German director Tom Tykwer’s latest work, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, one can only hope the Academy will be moved enough to unveil a new award next year, for the “Best Perfume-Induced Orgy Scene in an 18th-Century Costume Drama.”
Gruesomely baroque, oddly sensual and, at times, just plain weird, Perfume may be one of the most ambitious productions of the last decade. Based on the critically acclaimed novel by Patrick Süskind (a book Stanley Kubrick once deemed impossible to film), Tykwer’s film dares to venture past the limitations of the cinematic medium, appealing to the nose as much as to the eyes and ears.
In Perfume, Tykwer presents Süskind’s beautifully horrific portrait of a tortured French perfumer, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and his murderous quest to invent the perfect scent . We first meet Grenouille (Ben Whishaw, Stoned, Layer Cake awaiting his death sentence in a dark prison cell. His nostrils break through black, into the light – an appropriate introduction to an unwanted orphan with the gift of the greatest sense of smell in the world.
Narrated by John Hurt (V For Vendetta) in the tone of a disturbing bedtime tale, the film follows Grenouille from the orphanage to the tannery until as a young man he finds freedom under the apprenticeship of famed-perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman, Stranger Than Fiction).
Under Baldini’s tutelage, Grenouille learns the technicalities of perfuming, creating hundreds of glorious perfumes for his master. Baldini instructs Grenouille, teaching him the 12 essential elements of a perfume, as well as a thirteenth indefinable element. The director and writers take special care to illustrate the finer points of perfuming, elevating the practice to the highest of art-forms. Hoffman, a natural fit for the proud, aging perfumer, injects some much-needed laughter into Perfume, managing to coax a smile out of all the macabre.
But ultimately, the film’s success hinges on Whishaw’s terrific performance; a miscast could have easily sunk the whole picture. Whishaw, a relatively unknown actor to American audiences, brings a fragile madness to Grenouille, fleshing out the character’s child-like simplicity as well as his superior talent.
Determined to find a way to preserve the smell of all things, Grenouille travels to the perfuming capital of the world, Grasse, France. Without any sense of morality or inner-soul to guide him, the young perfumer turns demonic, slaughtering the town’s young and beautiful women and literally turning them into perfume – sort of like an 18th-century French Buffalo Bill, but without the sewing machine and lipstick.
Had Perfume fallen into the wrong hands, the film could have deteriorated into a sick joke – and be prepared, many critics and moviegoers will claim the film is just that. The premise is pretty disgusting and absurd, but the filmmakers tackle the source material with such imagination and beauty that even at its most over-the-top, Perfume deserves to be taken seriously.
Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Heaven) constructs a visual palette suited to Grenouille’s unique nasal-vision. As Grenouille travels through the filthy marketplaces of Paris to the wide-open fields of the French countryside, the camera follows the many smells, both foul and lovely, to a nearly dizzying effect. Using a succession of quick-cuts, Tykwer employs his flashy editing style to present the world as Grenouille smells it.
Perfume is surely grand filmmaking, marrying intoxicating imagery with a fantastic score to revel in the splendid minutiae of nature. Cinematographer Frank Griebe moves his camera with grace, casting the city streets in haunting shadows and allowing the vibrant colors to flourish when brought to the forefront in Grasse.
In one particularly eerie sequence, Grenouille stalks Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood, An American Haunting), the daughter of respected aristocrat, Richis (Alan Rickman, the Harry Potter series), in the lush garden of her protective father’s estate. Hurd-Wood has matured significantly since her film debut in 2003’s Peter Pan, and completely holds her own here even though Rickman is at the top of his acting game.
With Grenouille picking off women left and right, the people of Grasse go into a state of good ‘ol trigger-happy, God-fearing panic. Throwing quick jabs at the misguided efforts of state security and the Church hypocrisy, Tykwer skims over several weighty issues without really exploring any of them past face value.
As the Grimmest of fairytales, Perfume blossoms into full-blown surrealism in its final act, approaching something to the effect of a bastard-incarnation birthed from the likes of Fellini and Murnau. The film comes to a puzzling conclusion, likely to leave audiences befuddled and generally unfulfilled. Indeed, Perfume does beg the question “Why?” as in, “Why bother to tell the story at all?” Additionally, the film carries no definitive message other than that of an artist’s unflappable desire to create.
Perhaps Perfume misses some crucial opportunities to become socially relevant, but overall, Tykwer’s dedication is better suited to the human condition. He has constructed a wondrous, if flawed, character piece on an artist, a tragically incomplete being stuck between savagery and sublimity.
Contact reporter Zachary Herrmann at herrmanndbk@gmail.com.
