Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - 2006

I remember when Perfume came to my old theater, my buddy who still worked there after I'd quit told me it was really good. I think that at one point I walked in and watched the end, which was quite unusual for me to see none of the leadup to the ending, and instead just watch the big climactic scene. I knew the ending, but I don't think I'd ever seen the other parts of the film.

Perfume stars Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste, a gangly and awkward, but brilliant and talented young man. He is born to a destitute woman, and immediately we are told by the narrator that Jean-Baptiste has a wicked and immediate talent for smells. He is basically a superhuman, with superhuman sense of smell. This is captured later on when he has a transformative experience smelling a young woman, and when he tries to follow her and smell her, he startles her and when she cries out, her puts his hand over her mouth and suffocates her. Then, when he tries to capture the smell of her and is unable to, he decides to get into the perfuming business so that he can learn how to capture smells.

So right off we have a troubled and sympathetic main character. His motivation is divine and pure, and it is his natural disposition. The question of his talent is answered and we understand his motivation and his need. But, he is also a murderer, and as time goes on, he murders more people in a quest to find a certain, perfect scent. The movie is about this quest, and it is about the steps he takes to ultimately kill 13 women, get their smell, and create a perfect perfume from them.

Directed by Tom Tykwer, who we previously saw with Run Lola Run, we have a super stylistic, super well shot film. There is no sacrifice in this movie, no scrimping on acting, set design, style, and theme. The acting is fucking great, and I didn't realize that Ben Whishaw was the new Q until I viewed his filmography just now. He is really good in this, layered, challenged, driven, enigmatic, charismatic, magnetic, and forlorn. He is not give many lines, and is always diminitve and strange, yet he is so strong and brilliant he remains appealing.

The movie is almost 2.5 hours, and I was going to watch it in two sittings, but it was so good I was absolutely compelled to keep watching. I kept saying, "well, another 10 minutes" to myself, and eventually I only had 20 minutes left and decided just to fucking finish it. And it did not disappoint. This is a thoroughly cool, entertaining, mysterious film, with a hypnotic feel and a dark, but beautiful storyline. 5 stars.

Update 9/6/2021: Sometimes recently I have felt so inspired by things I have read the book. Perfume did this, and I rented and read the story by Patrick Suskind, translated into English. It is rare that I would say such a thing, but I think the movie of Perfume is better. I say in my movie review "Jean-Baptiste has a wicked and immediate talent for smells" which was really just artistic language, he is not actually wicked at that point in the movie, but in the book he is. His whole motivation comes from hatred and disdain, and his mission is less clear.

In the book, Jean-Baptiste has a much different goal and vision, and wants adamantly to destroy, which makes sense as he's a killer... But it is so much better when it's given ambiguity and beauty behind his action in the movie. In the movie he has a clear goal and a reason to pursue the goal, in the book he just sort of wanders around working on perfume. It's a nitpicky thing as well, but given the book was translated, it also read a bit plainly/and-or straightforward, and that's never fun.

I dunno, no hate, but I did really really love the movie.