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I feel sorry for Jean Baptiste Grenouille. I do not feel pity. He does not
deserve pity. He murders a score of virgins and a hooker, and one feels
sympathy for his genius. In his latest film PERFUME: THE STORY OF A
MURDERER (based on the novel by Patrick Sueskind), director Tom Tykwer
of RUN LOLA RUN fame establishes an epic panorama with monumental shots
of a Paris so filthy one longs to spend time in the Sun King's gardens
to recover. Newcomer Ben Whishaw plays Grenouille with an innocent
intensity that tells the viewer to consider the circumstances that made
Grenouille a serial killer. But is he really a serial killer? A
misunderstood artist more likely. Like the infamous poet-murderer Pierre
Francois Lacenaire, Grenouille does not feel like regular people do. He
smells scents of wood, stone and glass but the scent of a woman is the
scent that fixes his fate. Once created, a perfume of his can change
one's mood and alter bad tempers into friendliness. The editing exalts,
cuts between shots of flasks and shots of bodies, as the music inspires
to root for Grenouille in his noble quest to dominate those who do not
love him. The film is a symbolist poem on celluloid, with images that
evoke scents that evoke emotions, deep, exalted and musky. Like
Grenouille is indifferent to death but partial to the sense that
promises lust, he is a man with a vision not unlike Herman Goering's who
liked to hunt and kill and eat (and certainly smell) good food. Except
that Grenouille is the good guy in the story of his troubled but unique
life, torn symbolically and literally. What is the life of a peasant
woman to the existence of a human miracle like Grenouille? Nothing, and
hence the murders are justified. The viewer is an innocent accomplice of
Grenouille, seeing but not smelling what he smells (boiling flowers and
lush garbage). Why is there a negro next to a White woman in the orgy
sequence? Ah, must be an import from French New Guinea.
- Constantin von Hoffmeister
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