Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Review

Reader Comments

1. Andrew Cunningham 01/06/2007 @ 1:21am

   The book is amazing; the movie looks like a mess.

2. Gummo 01/06/2007 @ 4:05am

   You beat me to a review Peter; I was going to chuck one on the forum.

   Anyway, I particularly enjoyed Perfume, despite reading some rather negative reviews (The Guardian wasn’t keen at all). I just finished the book before watching it, and thought Tykwer did a magnificent job in bringing it to the screen. I too wondered about that ending, and how it would translate - it is an odd one, but that’s how it happens in the book; it certainly work’s much better on the page; a heavy dose of suspended disbelief is required certainly.

   Still, for a novel considered “unfilmable”, it remained extremely faithful. It’s a visual feast with some fine performances, and simply a highly entertaining, classic bit of storytelling - so I would have to recommend it myself.

3. Jack Frost 01/06/2007 @ 6:45am

   Nine more hours until I see it in the theatre and I’m VERY excited about this. Perhaps I’ll pick the book up as well.

4. Caterpillar 01/06/2007 @ 1:15pm

   Overall it’s a very good adaptation. They kind of messed up the ending by having Grenoile feel remorse but I guess I have to applaud them for the balls to keep the rest of the finale intact. Everyone who’s read the book knows it’s fucking outrageous.

5. Faust 01/06/2007 @ 1:31pm

   I have to agree with the review. I just saw the film and was wildly disappointed. I haven’t read the book, but the film dragged. The visuals, crowd scenes, and most of the production seemed bigger than the plot. I saw Children of Men, and Notes on a Scandal the same weekend, and Perfume was the worst of all three. Children of Men was the best. I had high hopes, and they were dashed.

6. toni 01/06/2007 @ 1:35pm

   well, i read the book a few times and this is far from being

   faithfull to the book. i won’t start with all the departures

   but the most striking is that Grenouille is being portrayed

   by an male dressman in the movie, although in the book he’s a

   bad-looking malformed small man which makes the fact that he can

   manipulate his surroundings with perfume that much more effective.

   all i can say: it’s an bernd eichinger production, that guy

   (perfume,prince eisenherz, der untergang) is the german

   weinsteins: cut & alter and manipulate till it’s “market"-friendly.

   Tom Twyker himself seems to grow more confident and technical

   assured over time but his talent is exponentially decreasing.

   Since “heaven” I knew all is lost. I can understand Spielberg

   trying to “do” an Kubrick (and failing sympathetically) but I

   CANNOT understand Twyker trying to “do” an Kieslowski and failing

   horribly.

7. Kurt 01/06/2007 @ 10:44pm

   I liked Tywer’s HEAVEN quite a bit. But the man is still standing in the shadow of a giant (bigtime!), give the man balls for trying, but he’s not even close. I think Kieslowski was just one-of-a-kind as a director....The First Chapter of Decalogue and “Red” deserve every superlative ever heaped on them.

   Hmmm, now I want that Criterion “Double Life of Veronique”....

8. Gummo 01/07/2007 @ 7:27am

   Toni - It was very faithful, what are you talking about? Sure there are departures, almost every novel adaptation has departures from the text, but without giving away too much, these were minimal. I initially agreed with the fact that Grenouille looks completely different than he does in the book; however, he does seem to be described differently in the novel - sometimes looking worse than other times - something Twyker commented on in an interview I read. I would say it was a forgivable diversion following the guys likable performance - and as big screen adaptations go, I thought this was pretty good.

9. Gummo 01/07/2007 @ 9:35am

   Thought this was amusing - A senior colleague of mine, HUGE on literature & theatre just now asked if I had seen perfume. I said I had, to which he said he thought it wasn’t bad, but again thought certain scenes did not translate to the screen at all (esp. that ending). Incidently, his German friend he saw it with thought it was “the worst film he had ever seen”. Well there you go! I love it when I see things differently : )

10. toni 01/07/2007 @ 10:43am

    well, during reading one does create his own world in his imagination

    and I must say the glossy look of the movie did not help me.

    Apart from that women in the book are being described as incredibly good looking and are translated 100% like that to the screen.

    but IMO the author meant that they only looked for grenouille that

    way because of certain features others would not see in them. In

    those times in paris no one was good looking in the classic sense.

    they were all living in filth and especially upper class women

    were extremly dirty and smelly. they just poured litres over litres

    of perfume over them and poudered their faces all day long. I was

    wishing for a much more drained and gritty look with only grenouilles phantasies and daydreams contrasted to that. all the

    visual tricks are neat but not the meat of the story for me.

    well, I certainly hoped that the german speaking movie industry will

    for once get a “genre” movie right, but no, failed miserably or

    they are now just in the same league with the other shitty costume

    dramas of hollywood.

    I’m all for departures if they make an adaptation a better movie

    and stay faithful to the novel but this seemed to me like the

    producer B.Eichinger told everybody: we need cool slo-mo effects,

    gorgeous women with good makeup so we can create some stars for

    germany and a dressman as actor since nobody wants to see a movie

    with an perverse hunchback, at least not more than a few hundred.

    Ah, and don’t forget eyepopping colors, I demand that.

    And what about the best part of the book. The Vision in the cave, he spends SEVEN YEARS THERE !!!!!

    Then, the soundtrack. oh my god. berlin phiharmonic dullness.

    some very good flashy jumpcuts and montages try to show the filth

    and the beauty but I made up my mind already after the first 20mins

    into the movie.

    And this horrible commentator. Did you see “Adaptation”, here it’s

    right: don’t do a fkn voiceover (if u dont know why and how).

    well and the ending: collective mechanical posing.

    Don’t get me wrong all of the above is of very high technical quality but everytime they leave the craziness and despair and dread

    of the book and start to feed the mainstream the movie grinds to

    a halt. I expected only brilliance of an adaptation of that book,

    but all I got was “nice+competent”.

11. Gummo 01/07/2007 @ 11:59am

    *Phew*, that was some read. Hey, you may be right - but I was looking for a visual feast, and that’s what I got out of it. I enjoyed the book, very much indeed - but considering I only read it recently, it has not really sunk in as any sort of immediate classic for me. I can see you are truly a purist as regards this novel; I admire that.

    As for the cave bit - do you really think they could have translated that to the screen without it looking daft? I know they touched on it (the novel is very fresh in my mind y’know), but again - I felt this was pretty forgivable considering the content they did manage to achieve. Sure the whole movie was bright, glossy, pretty, but once again I LIKED that. I read a review that said it looked like the actors were from a Calvin Klein commercial - agreed. I liked the storytelling side of it - the voice over lent an air of understanding to procedures, that would be difficult to translate into visuals or dialogue, considering the nature of the book.. but allowed it to flow. It certainly did not bother me..

    Who knows? I’m not saying the flaws you saw did not exist - I just saw it differently. I just know that the whole, big, pretty extravaganza was pretty on the eyes & mind - and damned good viewing. Incidentally the friend I went (who lent me the book, and is a huge fan) was of the same opinion.

    Well, there’s your “unfilmable” novel. If anythings gonna divide people, that’ll be it ; )

12. louis 02/18/2007 @ 4:29am

    wow! what a movie!!!

    loved every second of it.
    -----

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