I understand that this German-made, English-language film did virtually no business Stateside and more's the pity. Based on Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel and long considered unfilmable, I think director Tom Tykwer and his crew made a bold attempt to turn the book into cinema. The major problem was how to convey the sense of smell into visual images without resorting to gimmicks like Odorama or Smell-o-vision. But if you think about it, the author would have faced the same problem with the written word.
The story concerns one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille born into squalour beneath a fish stall in l8th Century Paris and blessed (or cursed) with an overly developed olfactory sense. Throughout his miserable early life he mentally catalogs the smell of everything around him and becomes obsessed with being able to capture the transitory sensations into more lasting ones. He apprentices himself to a master but past-it perfumier, played by Dustin Hoffman (in one of his less objectional incarnations, although still probably a bit OTT), who rapidly becomes aware of Grenouille's amazing talents and who looks to profit from them. Having learned all he can from Hoffman, he plans to travel to the perfume centre at Grasse and along the way discovers that he himself has no discernible odour. After a chance encounter with a comely market wench, he strives to bottle the essence of beauty and virtue into one undescribable odour -- hence the killings that follow and the very, very strange ending of the tale.
I think this is one instance where knowledge of the book is advantageous to the viewer (although like all adaptations, much is of necessity omitted). The movie relies heavily on John Hurt's voiceover narration at the start, although this is far from intrusive, to carry the tale along -- but the images and the music do give one a strange sense of actually being able to smell things as Grenouille does. Young Ben Whishaw who takes the lead is very, very good at portraying the strange, obsessed anti-hero. He is nowhere near as hideous as he is described in the novel, but perhaps this is just as well for a character who is almost never off-screen and constantly in our view. Something of a successful adaptation I think, but one which is obviously struggling to find its audience.
1 comment:
The lack of any body smell is something that is revealed much later in the film
than in the book and I can understand why. By and large I thought the film did
justice to what might have seemed almost an unfilmable idea - the effect of perfume on the one hand and the lack of odur on the other. This did make the
narration a necessary part of the film which was excellently photographed and
certainly much better than most reveiwers would have one believe.
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