Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Posted by Loukas Tsouknidas (loukas@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 18, 2006

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a best selling novel by German writer Patrick S¼skind. For years and years he’s been pressured by film people for his permission to turn the book into a movie. For years and years he said no. There is an unwritten rule that if you bust a man’s balls long enough he will agree to anything. Now, it’s proven right.

The man said yes but under one condition. Like Umberto Echo did earlier with his “Name of the Rose”, S¼skind took it in writing that he will not be bothered by any means during the making of the movie or afterwards. I haven’t read the book so I watched this film not as a purist fan but as movie goer that expects a decent visualization of a good best selling story.

Tom Tykwer was the main man (director, co-scriptwriter and composer) behind a project that Stanley Kubrick once called unfilmable. Obviously the German believed too much in his own powers. The only thing he accomplished is proving Kubrick right. At least until someone finds out how the hell one can describe scents and odors with the still much young, language of the moving images; not by any chance with the pantomime of a person constantly moving his nose. Luckily, literature is something completely different.

After we see the murderer hearing his sentence, the movie goes on in three parts. It begins with a quick run through the murderer’s childhood. Born in the fish market, gone to the orphanage and ending as a slave to a tanner, he was a boy of few words but extremely sensitive for all kinds of smells. In the 18^th century Paris the perfume industry was blooming; his professional future was set when he exposed his talent to a perfume maker with a seriously declining business. He mastered the tricks of the craft and left for the city of Grasse where the best perfume making techniques were applied.

All this is given through a narration that seems to be straight from the book itself. A narrator tells us how to see, hear, “smell” and generally perceive the story and the characters, who move around like puppets and never actually act. I felt insulted having to watch something with a talking manual like the director’s voice over on a DVD extra feature.

The second part is the crime mystery, where the hero murders young beautiful girls to capture their scents until he combines them all for the ultimate perfume while the town’s people try to solve this ugly situation. Of course a complex crime story can’t be shrunk to the 1/3 of a movie and still be plausible. It’s simplistic and badly handled by Tykwer; at some points even using standard horror flick clich©s, to lead us on although we know the end of this part from the beginning. The murderer’s capture felt great since what followed was the unknown third part that could save the day for this movie.

The joke was on me though. Tykwer gave us a hint a few minutes before about the ending but it was too ridiculous for me to buy. What comes after is a simplistic, obvious and manipulating load of crap that probably passes for the bad guy’s redemption for the so far distractive nature of his talents. I will give no spoilers but one little detail. The perfume is so powerful it forces the little 18^th century town’s people to begin a sexual orgy where homosexuality is represented in a small ratio probably for political correctness’s sake.

In the end I didn’t feel anything for this puppet of a man; although it’s probably the puppeteer’s fault. Tykwer never seemed to aim at a pure cinematic audience. The book’s aficionados are obviously the target since I constantly felt someone was spelling it to me. I certainly won’t be reading it soon until at least, I have totally forgotten about this harmful experience.

Every year a movie gets to me so bad it makes me wanna kick someone. This is it. Where’s my roommate?

Read more articles by Loukas Tsouknidas