Perfume

Since I can’t remember the last movie rental I watched that left any kind of impression on me, I felt compelled to post about a gem I saw tonight. Perfume is the film adaptation of the 1985 literary historical German novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind.

I picked up the book when it was first released and the story has stayed with me all of these years. The story was so unique, well written, horrifying, beautiful, shocking and thought provoking that I’ve never forgotten it.

The main character is born in the slums of Paris in 1736 with the gift of a sublime sense of smell. He’s orphaned and moves from infancy through boyhood and adolescence from one appalling situation to the next and causes all of those who come in contact with him a sense of discomfort. The reason for this is because he doesn't actually have a scent, which other people aren't consciously aware of, but the effect is that to the rest of the world, he nearly doesn't exist. He's eventually apprenticed to a perfumer and begins a quest to create the ultimate scent and he embarks on a series of murders. The story explores scent and the emotional meaning scents carry and although the setting is historical, the themes are entirely contemporary.

Stanley Kubrick declared the story unfilmable, but German filmmaker Tom Tykwer has created an incredibly visceral cinematic masterpiece. You’ll want to put this opinion into the context of my personal movie taste, which you can get a feel for if you look at my detailed profile. If you like the type of films that I do, you’ll really like this movie.

Has anyone else read this book or seen this film? What good movies have you seen lately?