Review: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2007)

* * * *
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Ben Wishaw, Alan Rickman, Dustin Hoffman

Perfume: The Story of a Murder is a film that absolutely should not work and yet, miraculously, does. It takes as its centre the sense of smell, perhaps the most difficult of the five senses to convey through the medium of film, and makes the rest of the story work around it. Every emotion and thought in this story is tied to scent and, somehow, director Tom Tykwer is able to take that and transform it into something of great visual impact, weaving a cinematic spell that seems impossible. This film is a masterpiece, plain and simple.

Based on the novel of the same name by Patrick Suskind, Perfume follows the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Wishaw), born unceremoniously in Paris in the mid-18th century. Immediately the film confronts us with the crowded, polluted streets of Paris and though of course you can’t smell it, you can sense the stench of the fish market where Grenouille’s mother lays under her stall, casually births her baby, cuts the cord with the same dirty knife she uses to gut fish, and then leaves the presumed dead infant in the filth so that she can carry on with her work. The narrator (John Hurt) informs us that this is the fifth such birth she has endured but that this one will be different because, unlike the other children, this one will live. Grenouille’s cries alert the people of the market who, upon discovering the baby under the stall call out for the murder of his mother, who in a sense becomes the first of her son’s many casualties.

Grenouille lives for a number of years in an orphanage and then is sold to a tannery, where he works several more years. If the drudgery and cruelty of his life affects him, he does not show it. His world is defined solely and completely by his sense of smell, so keenly tuned that he can smell the rocks under the water of a river. He longs to escape the tannery and go to work for the Italian perfumer Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), where he hopes to learn how to distil and preserve scent, particularly the scent of living beings. He gets his wish and goes to work for Baldini but learns that he can’t teach him what he really wants to know. To learn that he must go to Grasse and once there he begins his monstrous collection, killing women and bottling their scents and then creating a perfume so potent, so beautiful, that men and women fall at his feet in worship.

The key to the film is the character of Grenouille, who is absolutely fascinating despite the fact that he has no emotions, no thoughts, no personality, and exists only to smell things. He is utterly devoid of humanity and greedily sucks the life out of everyone around him (there is a running theme through the film that all his “masters,” from his mother, the owner of the orphanage, the owner of the tannery, and Baldini, meet unfortunate ends the moment he is finished with them), existing only to take and never to give anything back. He feels no guilt regarding the many women that he murders because he’s unable to recognize them as human beings, and sees them only as scents he has yet to collect. He’s more animal than human and because of this it is difficult to hate him; he has no higher consciousness, no ability to reason. He is, in a very real sense, an innocent, which is how Wishaw plays him. Grenouille slithers through life with nothing but this need, this compulsive and all-consuming desire to create scent and is unable to recognize that his act of creation is also an act of destruction.

Adapting a novel as beautifully written as Suskind’s is always a tricky proposition. Often it is the prose itself as much as the characters and story that make it compelling, and that is of course something that cannot be translated to film. The film stays quite faithful to the novel, save for a few minor details and subplots, and makes up for the loss of beautifully constructed sentences by substituting them for beautifully rendered visuals. This is one of the most visually arresting films I’ve seen in a long time, wonderfully detailed in its art direction and costume design and perfectly capturing the spirit of the source novel. Few films make the page to screen transition as smoothly and perfectly as this one does; it is an unqualified artistic triumph.

Book vs Film: Perfume vs. Perfume

Plot: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man completely lacking in humanity but possessing a heightened sense of smell, wreaks havoc on the world around him as he endeavors to capture the very essence of human beings. Grenouille is basically a vampire who thirsts after scents rather than blood and in attempting to capture various scents to create one perfect, beautiful scent, he leaves a trail of bodies behind him.

Primary Differences Between Book and Film: Plotwise, the differences between the two are minimal and largely the result of the film having to compress the timeline. A small subplot involving Grenouille's experience as a scientific oddity is cut completely and not particularly missed. In terms of characterization, the character of Grenouille is fairly significantly changed. In the book Grenouille is a very conniving character, very calculating and overtly aware of the ways in which he's manipulating people. The film version of Grenouille seems somewhat less aware of how his actions affect those around him and though he's not innocent in a general sense, he seems innocent in the sense that he doesn't seem to understand the full impact of his actions because he doesn't understand what it means to be human.

For The Book: The story is very much an interior one, relying very heavily on the psychological experience derived from the sense of smell. Some of the book's most memorable passages involve breaking down and describing the combination of scents that intoxicate and drive Grenouille, which really can't be translated to film. Further, the book gets deep, deep into Grenouille's head and since he's a character of few spoken words, that means that the film version is going to seem a little shallow in comparison.

For The Film: It sounds impossible, but director Tom Tykwer is able to translate Grenouille's aromatic experiences into a completely visual tableau. This is an expertly adapted film that truly captures the spirit of the source work and runs with it, creating a film that is entirely enthralling. Ben Wishaw stars as Grenouille and renders a surprisingly sympathetic performance, and there are nice supporting performances from Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.

Winner: Film. I like the book a lot and highly recommend it, but the film absolutely blew me away. For a story about a vile creature committing a series of horrible acts, it's amazing how beautiful the film is. Major kudos to cinematographer Frank Griebe for his wonderful work. The book is good, but the film is a masterpiece.

Review: Bright Star (2009)

* * * 1/2
Director: Jane Campion
Starring: Abbie Cornish, Ben Wishaw, Paul Schneider

Period pieces tend to be very somber affairs, full of repressed passions and strict social rules. Jane Campion’s new film Bright Star, though anchored by a thread of restrained eroticism and shaped by the tragic circumstances of the poet John Keats, is a surprisingly joyful movie, matching light for dark at every turn. It is a beautiful looking and beautifully rendered piece that hits all the right notes and features a terrific and engaging lead performance from Abbie Cornish.

Cornish stars as Fanny Brawne, the woman to whom Keats (Ben Wishaw) was loosely engaged at the time of his death. I say “loosely” because it seems apparent to everyone that Keats will not live to marry her and that that is why the engagement has been allowed at all. Underappreciated in his own time, Keats is in no financial position to take a wife, though in a different era Fanny herself could have supported them through her work as a designer and seamstress. Throughout the film she’s shown sewing and embroidering and she delights in revealing to people that she’s made her dresses herself and points out the various stylistic innovations she’s created. The costumes in the film (both Fanny’s and those of the other characters) are indeed exquisite and come courtesy of Janet Patterson who also did the costumes for Campion’s The Piano and The Portrait of a Lady.

Fanny and Keats are introduced through the poet Charles Brown (Paul Schneider), who is a neighbor to the Brawnes’ and a friend to Keats. Fanny and Brown have a contentious relationship defined by a dislike for each other that, were it not for Keats, may have evolved in the manner of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Instead Fanny and Brown fight for Keats’ attention with Fanny winning, though perhaps only by default. Brown’s affection for Keats is not romantic but rather stems from his recognition of Keats’ superior abilities and his desire to see those abilities appreciated by others. Brown’s devotion is less to the man than it is to the man’s gift as an artist and his admission near the end, when he repeats “I failed John Keats!” is wrenching. Schneider is perfect in this role and brings an edge to it that balances the film and keeps it from dipping into sentimentality.

Of course, the driving force of the film is Cornish, who makes Fanny into a lively and clever heroine, but also one plagued by insecurities and doubt. Fanny excels at a certain plane of social interaction – flirting, as Brown condescendingly points out to Keats – but is occasionally at a loss when a situation calls for a different tenor. At one point Keats asks her if she’s in love with Brown. The answer is no but she stands there dumbstruck, unable to engage with him in this way. As the film progresses, however, she gradually matures so that we believe that the girl who started the film thinking poetry a somewhat useless exercise can now recite Keats’ verses with an appropriate amount of gravitas and feeling. She and Wishaw (who, it must be noted, gets to do little more than alternate between looking lovelorn and sickly) have a nice chemistry, though to be honest there’s more fire between Cornish and Schneider. Still, it’s believable enough that losing Keats would inspire her to spend the rest of her days walking the same paths she walked with him as the film gives their relationship enough space to really develop and evolve.

As a filmmaker, Campion is someone I tend to run hot and cold on, finding that sometimes she uses a mallet where a hammer would suffice. With this film, however, she seems to exercise a great deal of restraint, largely letting the images speak for themselves rather than underscoring them with an overbearing narrative commentary to make sure that you get it. One thing I always find praise worthy about her work is the way that they look, and her period pieces in particular tend to be realized with what I would describe as a painter’s aesthetic, rich in color and finely contrasted. This film looks gorgeous and has a haunting quality that deepens its impact. It's a beautiful, wonderful film.

Review: Brideshead Revisited (2008)

* * 1/2
Director: Julian Jarrold
Starring: Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell, Ben Wishaw, Emma Thompson

At best, Brideshead Revisited can be called a competent adaptation of the novel on which it is based. It hits on all the major plot points, touches on the major themes, but is ultimately lacking in vitality. It’s a beautiful looking film, to be sure, but it seems to have no spirit, which is ironic given how much time it devotes to exploring the issue of religion.

The story is related to us through the memories of Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode). When he was a student at Oxford he developed a friendship with Sebastian Flyte (Ben Wishaw), the eccentric son of an aristocratic family. Charles is charmed by Sebastian and they quickly become inseparable. It is fairly obvious that Sebastian is in love with Charles, though Charles’ own feelings are somewhat more ambiguous. During the summer holiday, Charles is invited to spend the summer at Brideshead, the home of Sebastian’s family. There he meets Julia (Hayley Atwell), one of Sebastian’s sisters, and Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), Sebastian’s mother. Later Charles will accompany Sebastian and Julia to Venice, where their father (Michael Gambon) lives in exile with his mistress (Greta Scacchi). During this trip, Charles’ affections shift from Sebastian to Julia, and a rift is created between him and the Flyte family. Years later, he and Julia will meet again, have an affair and plan to run away together, only to find that the same old obstacles – primarily Julia’s Catholic faith - are still standing in their way.

Towards the end of the film, it is stated a couple of times that Charles wants “too much,” and there’s a sense in which the film itself wants too much as well. It acknowledges that Charles’ great love is actually neither Sebastian nor Julia, but Brideshead itself and all that it represents to him. At the same time, though, it attempts to frame Charles’ relationship with Julia as the great love story, so that in essence the film is saying one thing but doing another. And even though it wants the thwarted love between Charles and Julia to be the driving force of the story, it doesn’t actually take much care in developing it. More time is given to Charles’ relationship with Sebastian than his relationship with Julia which is, in many respects, rushed through do to time constraints. It seems as if they’re only actually together for about five minutes before Julia’s Catholic guilt gets the better of her and she calls things off.

For the most part, the story unfolds in a languid manner, but life is breathed into it through the appearances of Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, whose screen time is brief, and Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain, who absolutely dominates every scene that she’s in. As the overbearing matriarch of the Flyte family, Thompson renders a terrific performance and manages to buoy the film every time she appears on screen.

As the two principles, Matthew Goode and Hayley Atwell do what they can but, ultimately, Charles is a cipher and Julia apparently has no ability to make her own decisions, which means that neither character is terrifically compelling. Sebastian, who destroys himself with alcohol, is compelling and so is the performance by Ben Wishaw, but by the end he’s been marginalized and pushed aside in favour of the Charles-Julia love story and meditations on the question of faith. All in all, you get your money’s worth on the strength of the performances by Thompson, Gambon and Wishaw, as well as the film’s great production values, but there’s really no good reason not to wait for this to come out on DVD to see it.