Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The visual re-creation of smelly, sordid, overcrowded 1700s France is wonderful (of course I’d like that!), and the “chemistry” of perfume-making is fascinating. Serial killer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s madness is inspired — the movie starts with a rating of R for “aberrant behavior” and loads of other things, and yes, here be abberant behavior. Do keep the kids out of the room, won’t you? And any movie that has men in French-aristocrat drag, with powdered faces and rouged cheeks, is worth watching for that alone. But…
But, what I didn’t like about the book was the kind of mystical power of smell that Grenouille develops, shifting him from sociopath to super-villain (emphasized with some pretty corny camera shots in places). There are other things I didn’t care for, too. I don’t remember whether the narrator’s voice was part of the book or not, but I’m not a fan of movie narration. The first half of the move becomes a kind of Lemony Snicket for Adults, with awful things occuring to everyone whose path crosses that of Grenouille, to the point of making the viewer laugh. The campiness goes lower-key after Grenouille leaves Paris, but it’s still there, especially for those of us who are horror fans (”Hmm, close-up on a tall, tubular glass vat of oil-suspended flower petals. Any bets we’ll be seeing it put to another use soon?”), and by the time Grenouille gets to the scaffold, well, everything just falls apart and I can’t imagine the theater audience not laughing out loud, or maybe just groaning in disgust. The very bitter end of the film brings us back to the sick-and-twisted spirit that ought to dominate this movie, but you have to get through the silliness, first…
A movie about obsessed perfume makers/serial killers is inevitably going to be very twisted or very camp. But it shouldn’t be both, and Perfume can’t make up its mind. I think that’s what left me feeling so-so about the novel, too.
Which isn’t to say you absolutely shouldn’t watch it. I just can’t recommend it without a lot of caveats. It does have some great moments of squick and some gorgeous settings. Dustin Hoffman plays an amusing past-his-prime Italian perfume maker, and Alan Rickman plays a bewigged aristocrat doing his best to keep his daughter alive once the killings begin. Hard to say much about the guy playing Grenouille, Ben Wishaw, since he doesn’t really get to emote — Grenouille is one of those stolid sociopaths, as opposed to dry-humored Lecter or light-hearted Dexter…. The movie poster is pretty awesome.
What did you guys think about it?
drupagliassotti @ July 27, 2007