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Perfume is one of those rare perfect movies. The film is an adaptation of a book which I’ve never read, but which I will be sure to pick up the next time I go to a bookstore. Many directors have been attached to this film project, so many, in fact, that the writer who wrote the story wrote a satire of the situation when he penned the novel Rossini about a group of people arguing over the rights to film a writer’s bestselling novel. After seeing the finished version of the film, I can understand why so many people were after the rights to make this film.

Perfume is the story of a man gifted, or cursed depending on how you look at it, with an acute sense of smell, so acute that his sense of smell is his major connection with the world. Through a life characterized by hardship and the inability to connect to others due to his unique relationship with the world, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille learns to create perfume in an attempt to learn to capture the smell of people. His obsession leads him down the road of wholesale slaughter, but in a manner that is almost charming due to the character’s innocence and naiveté. The film becomes even more interesting after that point, transitioning from a stark realistic perspective with fantastic elements to a fantastic film with a smidge of realism.

The director of this film has done a fantastic job. The film is told through visual narrative, metaphor, and amazing imagery. The story flows so smoothly that at times I found myself almost falling asleep, not because the movie was boring, but because the film was done so well that I found myself completely at peace watching this brilliant story play out. The director, Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run, Heaven) throws a professional shine on an extremely well-crafted movie. The visuals are crisp, filmed from fantastic angles, and full of lush beautiful imagery that stuns the mind. There were a few moments in the movie that completely blew my mind, in a good way.

Every aspect of this movie is magnificent, from the disturbing make-ups of a few individuals to the wonderful settings and set design that compose the backdrop of the story. The score is almost like a lullaby, adding even more of a feel of innocence to the character of Jean-Baptiste.

The acting is wonderful. Ben Whishaw plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille with a perfect combination of ignorance and quirkiness. The character seems as amazed at himself half the time as the audience is. Alan Rickman also turns in a wonderful performance as the father of a girl that Grenouille is hunting down. Rickman’s over- protective father figure seems out of step with Rickman’s generally quirky character history, but he pulls the role off with the right amount of overprotectiveness and passion. Dustin Hoffman is fantastic as the equally eccentric perfume manufacturer that teaches Grenouille the basics of making perfume. The rest of the cast is uniformly as solid in supporting roles, which only serve to enrich the already strong world that Perfume is set in.

It’s hard for me to say just how wonderful this movie is. Of course, I didn’t think that this would be the case until I saw the end of the film, as it transformed from a quality character study to one of the most mind-blowing narratives I have ever seen. The transformation of the Jean-Baptiste character is fantastic and the end of the movie ends the character’s story in one of the most memorable scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. In the end, the beautiful part of the film is that the feeling and evocation of the character’s final solution echoes the feel of the film and of the viewer at the exact same moments, a beautiful sort of synchronicity that I have rarely ever felt with a film. When was the last time you saw a movie, that when it was over you had completely finished with it, digesting it in bite sized chunks as it went along, and as the credits came up you found yourself asking for no more, but not feeling overfull either? This is the experience of Perfume… of course prudes and peaceniks will probably get limp hard-ons for all of the breasts and violence in the film, but I hardly even noticed them, and, should they have been missing, my feelings about the film would still be the same.

Final Synopsis: This movie is fantastic. Out of the three hundred movies I have reviewed so far, it is the only one to get a 10. I will be buying this in the near future. You should watch it first… but you’ll probably end up buying it… unless you’re a W.A.S.P.

Points Lost: None

Burning Question: I have no questions for this film… other than, “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
10/10

Tags: 2006, alan rickman, Ben Whishaw, bizarre, Dustin Hoffman, fairy tale, fantasy, horror, horror movie, John Hurt, latest movie reviews, perfect movie, perfume, quirky, recent1, serial killer, Tom Tykwer