Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
by Tom Tykwer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alan Rickman, Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Francesc Albiol, Gonzalo CunillDirector: Tom Tykwer
Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
Writer: Tom Tykwer
Producer: Andreas Grosch
Producer: Andreas Schmid
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Writer: Bernd Eichinger
Writer: Andrew Birkin
Writer: Patrick Süskind
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 147 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Movie Reviews of Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
Movie Review: SMELL: sense and sensuality, essence and soul
Summary: 5 Stars
I liked the movie.
I appreciate the rather uniform high quality of the amazon reviews, it tells me that the movie stimulates people to think about the issues and consider what the authors present.
But i'm left with several lingering problems about what was going on.
Perhaps these things were settled in the novel and only hinted at in the movie, i don't know.
Like any good piece of literature there are several threads interwoven.
The first is about obsession and talent. Here the movie reminds of Amadeus, just a different sense-this with smell and Amadeus with sound.
For Amadeus was about talent, like this movie what happens when talent is submerged in life and suppressed and not recognized for the rarity and genius that it is.
The main character, Frog (apparently one translation of his name and a striking description of the character and his walk as well), never has a chance. Despite being an olafactory genius, he is trapped in a time and place that only offers his talent meager usage. That is one of the questions i had, this main theme just gets dropped after the climax of the naked bodies in the square, he literally loses the obsession and the drive, i don't know why.
As his uniquely talented nose is discovering the world and trying to find an outlet (which it eventually does with Dustin Hoffman's character, the failed Italian perfumer). The second theme begins to emerge, on top of the obsession is something about the essential things, the essence of being, the smell that characterizes. At first it looks like the author is talking about the soul, the thing that makes a woman a woman, a piece of steel-steel etc. but i am not sure. It looks as if this characteristic, this smell that he detects is the essence of being a woman, maybe love, maybe joy in living, maybe even pheromones of attraction and sensual passion. This is the whole thread about creating the perfect perfume from the distilled essence of the 12 (or is it 13?) beautiful, attractive, young women. It doesn't appear to be about sex, despite the orgy at the end where the townsfolk get a whiff of the finished product. Perhaps there is a hint in the three kinds of scents used in perfumes, one for immediate, one for intermediate, one for long term. In the long term, the townspeople were apparently embarrassed and ashamed, in the short term they were passionate and lustful. In any case, the perfume is about synergy, how the essence of these women together create the perfect perfume.
Another major theme is about love and caring. The first half basically hasn't any love in it at all, the later half has the relationship of the father and daughter and them to the dead but not forgotten mother and wife. The Frog has no love or concern for anyone, his first murder is just circumstantial, an accident.The others are planned, calculating and cold blooded, none even with any passion or lust despite the hair shorn and naked bodies of the young victims. His only passion comes in a brief, what if vision he sees when he opens and uses the perfume in the town square. It's not as much regret for their deaths as a missed opportunity to smell them more intimately. But another thing that puzzles me is that the universe, that fate seems to follow him and tidy things up, everyone that passes him along, from birth mother, to orphanage exploiter, to perfumer, to 2nd perfumer, died comically tragic deaths soon after he moves on. It is as if the universe is balancing out the very rotten hand he was dealt, by dealing death to those that exploit him. But why? Because they didn't recognize and further the talented nose? No, it is more like cleaning house or tying up lose ends. Again, i'm not sure what the author is trying to tell us here.
Even with these 3 themes doing a complex waltz on screen, the movie is a riot of color and proposed smells for us, the audience. Since our theaters don't have aerosols that bring specific smells to our minds, the smells are provoked by some extraordinarily good movie making. I for one can smell the sewers of later 16 or early 16thC Paris, i've been in Chinese fish markets and suspect that they smelled pretty much how the world into which he was thrust so unceremoniously did back then. This crossover of visual and olfactory senses is a treat, movies seldom work much on our sense of smell. Again the alignment with Amadeus pops up, just another sense. There is this nice crossover between sense and sensually, for smell is a key sense in sex and lust, something that the movie uses to heighten and strength the impact.
It's an interesting movie, i'm glad i ran across it.
Summary of Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 03/04/2008 Run time: 147 minutes Rating: RSimilar DVD Movies
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