Criticism of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

From the director of Run Lola Run, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer left me with a similar impression. Interesting in its attempt at experiment, but it simply doesn't deliver anything satisfying. Technically and artistically, I can appreciate it. Along with most of the people in the theater, though, I didn't appreciate it as an audience member.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer chronicles the life obsession of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw). Born with an amazingly strong sense of smell and entrenched in a filthy life, his encounter and subsequent murder of an enchanting young lady (with impossibly red hair, especially in 18th-century Paris) inspires him to capture scent forever. From there, he impresses a perfume artist (Dustin Hoffman) to apprentice him, performs failed experiments to try capturing scent, learns about a perfuming process that could accomplish his goal and that he'll have to go to another city to learn the process. The movie works relatively well up to this point, except that the characterization of the perfume artist doesn't lead to his actions progressing logically.

After Jean-Baptiste leaves Paris, Perfume falls deeper and deeper into artistic self indulgence that pushes the bounds of the audience's tolerance. This young man, who has no experience or training in the wild, goes into the mountains and lives there until he reaches an epiphany. Albeit, it has an interesting premise, but it doesn't fit this movie or the character. The movie revolves around an emotionally immature character who has lived as a slave most of his life then has had an education in perfume. If the movie centered around some mystic or the character believably knew soemthing about the wilderness, I could accept this bit but. . .no, just no.

Once Jean-Baptiste reaches the place that will teach him more about perfume and capturing scent, it actually gets interesting again. The movie conveys the type of work and the type of knowledge that goes into perfuming. While Jean-Baptiste works with flower petals, a supervisor or teacher praises him and criticizes other students. The movie shows great big vats of flower petals in animal fat getting boiled. The deft presentation of the town demonstrates how much their economy depends on perfuming. Like in the beginning with Jean-Baptiste apprenticed by the perfume artist, the parts that show the town and the perfume manufacturing process, Perfume does a good job of reaching a fascinating level. The myths, the legends, the science, it all makes for interesting stuff to learn about.

The movie then moves on with the plot and, once again, further into self-indulgence and utter audience skepticism. Jean-Baptiste has discovered the process that will capture human scent forever, but it involves murder. Suddenly Jean-Baptiste becomes a murdering and burglaring mastermind that the town can't catch. With such a unique modus operandi, the delay of his capture has some level of acceptability but not enough. Nonetheless, his spree doesn't totally wreck the movie. Not even the cross country hunting down of the penultimate beauty (who, of course, has that impossibly red hair) and her father, Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman), destroys the experience. In fact, Alan Rickman (like Dustin Hoffman before him) steals the movie, becoming the highlighting presence, sucking the audience into his character and plight.

Unfortunately, after that episode, the movie falls down a cliff into a train wreck of self indulgence. It returns to the beginning of the movie, when Jean-Baptiste has to face the consequences of his actions by a truly harsh execution. He has a secret defense, however, his perfect perfume made from his horrid process. With it, he charms his guards and the village people who, a few minutes earlier, had entered the throes of ecstasy about his execution. From there, the movie literally devolves into a massive orgy and had one chance of redeeming itself but failed. After a masterfully dramatized speech, by Alan Rickman, about how he would be the last one watching Jean-Baptiste (and I can't believe that I didn't catch the allusion until just now) dying, Antoine Richis falls under the Jean-Baptiste's perfume charm.

The orgy then becomes another momentus epiphany for Jean Baptiste. Watching it, he feels guilt for the murders he has committed and realizes his mistake. If he realized that he had passion for the girls with impossibly red hair rather than obsessed over their scents and capturing the scents, he could have loved and experienced life fully. The movie montages between Jean Baptiste to the orgy to the girl with impossibly red hair, and the audience feels uncomfortable and completely unsatisfied by the conclusion. And the worst part, the movie doesn't end there. You won't get the ending here, and it doesn't matter, because the ending doesn't matter. It just becomes further self-indulgence with obvious meaning but communicates little satisfaction.

And the truly ingratiating thing, the movie actually has some potential. It has some humorous bits. The cinematography enchants the audience and sucks them into it. Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman provide stellar performances. The mythology and processes of perfume provide fascinating brain candy and an interesting education into the topic. The movie and Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille even charms the audience after he has committed his first murder.

The failure of the movie lies in the fact that it didn't provide enough characterization. The obvious failure gets demonstrated by the perfume artist. After he discovers that Jean-Baptiste just boiled the cat to death and shows disgust at the act, he then provides Jean-Baptiste with a journeyman's letter to allow entrance into the perfume city. The movie shows the perfume artist as a cantankerous old man but fails to demonstrate his greed. It took that interaction to show his greed. . .but it comes at the moment that requires the audience to have already believed in that greed. Even worse for this defining moment, Dustin Hoffman plays the part with his cute delivery.

The failed characterization of the perfume artist comes off as something paltry compared to the horrible execution of Jean-Baptiste's characterization. The audience sees the inhumane life of the character before he becomes apprenticed to the perfume artist. Also, the movie communicates Jean-Baptiste's ignorance of the world in regards to his lack of knowledge. Having the extreme low level of emotional maturity of Jean-Baptiste remains hard to believe. Maybe his strong sense of smell has something to do with it, but the audience will have a hard time understanding that element without more demonstration. It could have become more believable if before the numerous moments that matter, the audience had seen smaller demonstrations of this emotional immaturity.

Failing to characterize Jean-Baptiste feels especially disappointing because he feels like an interesting and complicated character. The execution in this movie sucks that interest level out of him. Coming from such a horrible past, having an amazing talent, possessing great ambition, meeting the early frustrations of having this talent, emotional immaturity and his failed understanding all make for amazing possibilities. Even his questionable morality, if executed well, could have created a really compelling character and exposed something about our human natures. The movie could have even made the character someone the audience would hate but also someone that would fascinate them, a hero that had reached a level of greatness but falls from grace. I can't begin to imagine concretely the potential possibilities of making this character work, but Jean-Baptiste had such possibility and the movie simply didn't do the work to reach it.

Clocking in at 2 1/2 hours and costing $10 dollars, this movie becomes time and effort wasted. With all the possibility and potential, it comes off as an even bigger failure than a B-movie, in which the makers don't even try to reach artistic heights. Like me, if you're a beginning writer who wants to understand complicated characters and the pitfalls inherent in them, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer might make for some good material. It may even provide a little inspiration, like it has done for me.

Nonetheless, in the end, it doesn't provide a good example of how to execute a complicated character in narrative. To learn from it, an aspiring writer would need to do what I did in this review, tear the movie apart and find the problems with it. As a form of entertainment, though, this movie only provides a modicum of possibility.