Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
In the classic serial killer book, Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lector intones that a serial killer starts his killings essentially to get that thing which he covets the most. This simple and flawless logic is seen in the movie Perfume: A Story of a Murderer where we are witness to the genesis of a serial killer. One difference here is being that since we know his intentions and motives right from the start, we actually tend to sympathize with his actions and want to root for his success.
When a friend of mine recommended Perfume: A Story of a Murderer to me, I got hold of the movie without looking it up or reading anything about it. I saw it with a clean slate (a very rare thing nowadays) and ended up being shocked and astounded by it.
Perfume’s essentially a story of Jean-Baptiste (Ben Whishaw) who is gifted with extremely strong olfactory senses. From the time he is born, he is aware of smells that an ordinary mortal wouldn’t be aware of. For instance, when he is lying on a meadow, he can close his eyes and smell the nectar in the flowers, the mushrooms sprouting out in damp places, the ripe apples hanging from a tree at a distance away and so on. When he’s a kid he is confused by the assortments of smells that hits his nose from all directions. Over a period of time he learns to separate and distinguish them.
As an orphan (he is actually abandoned by his mom), he grows up in an orphanage only to be sold to a tannery owner under whom he works and grows into an adult. Once he’s out of the tannery, he gets in touch with Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), a perfume maker who is astounded by Jean’s olfactory powers. Baldini uses his gifts to concoct better perfumes and also teaches Jean the fine art involved in making a perfume. He narrates him a story about an Egyptian mummy, whose perfume was so powerful that it had the entire world in its sway. This story turns out to be a turning point for Jean who now has an ambition of making the greatest perfume in the world which can have the world under its sway.
His quest for creating the greatest perfume in the world takes him to Grasse, where he realises that almost all the elements of the world have already been used up to create various perfumes. To do something new, he has to discover an unused base. And this thought leads him to use the scents of virginal beautiful women as a base to create his dream perfume. The hitch he faces is that he’s unable to extract the scent while the women are alive. Matters come to a head when he targets Laura, the daughter of Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman), the wealthiest person in the town. Does Jean succeed in his mission or does the townsfolk manage to get rid of him is what constitutes the rest of the movie.
The movie stands apart essentially due to its powerful visuals. When the movie opens up in the filthiest market place in Paris, you can nearly smell the stench that emanates from there. When Jean goes through open fields and meadows en-route to Grasse, the viewer can feel the sense of freedom and exhilaration that Jean goes through. The women /girls chosen by Jean for his perfume shine with such an angelic quality that the viewer agrees with his choice of subjects. From the very first frame to one of the most bizarre climaxes ever seen, the movie enthralls you visually.
The brilliant visualization along with good acting coupled with a unique fast paced storyline makes this a must watch movie.
Be warned though, this movie is certainly not for the faint hearted. There are many stomach churning scenes that are scattered throughout the movie. And there is plenty of nudity as well. (Before you guys jump up to get the movie, let me inform you that most of the nudity is non-titillating)
Go for it if you have a taste for something really different and slightly bizarre.
Tags: bizarre, serial killer, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
It was a totally engrossing movie! And I heard the book is even better (as happens with most such cases). Good job on the recommendation!!
Yeah, it truly an amazing movie. I have seen it thrice. Also i recommend to watch Twilight which i saw recently. A very good movie to watch out.
Nice writtern sudhir !!
yep its nice movie, i have seen few days back…
Good one…
I didn’t like it. Don’t know why!
Didn’t get it I guess.
A very interesting writeup on a movie with an interesting premise!
Will surely catch up with this one .
Thanks for the recco!!