No Country For Old Men  | |
| The Darjeeling Limited | |
| Sicko | |
| Spider-Man 3 | |
| Manufacturing Dissent | |
| The Number 23 | |
| Letters From Iwo Jima | |
| Factory Girl | |
| Black Snake Moan | |
 | PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER |
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER Starring Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman and John Hurt Directed by Tom Tykwer Reviewed by Michelle Reindal Based on the novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind and adapted by Tom Tykwer, this grisly tale falls resoundingly flat on its extrasensory nose when it hits the big-screen. Although visually pleasing, Perfume is over-imagined, under-characterized, and utterly tasteless. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) is born in 18 th Century France with an extraordinary sense of smell. He's tossed into an orphanage after his mother is put to death (for birthing him in a fish market atop bloody guts and abandoning him there), and rendered a freak by other kids as he sniffs things like sticks, stones, and dead rat ass. A near mute, Jean-Baptiste is sold to a leather mill and worked to the bone day and night by his Klingon looking master. Eventually, he's let out into the city, where his nose leads him to an introductory taste of the alluring scent of a woman, and his first victim. While apprenticing under the infamous, but bleary perfumer, Giuseppe Baldini (a wrong-fitted Dustin Hoffman), he learns about various aromas and concoctions, all the while psychotic tendencies swarming, and eventually leading to an obsessive journey to preserve essence (preferably of redheaded virgins). After killing a few brunettes for kicks, he sets his sights upon a beautiful aristocratic redhead and the story takes a nose (excuse the pun) dive from here. At a dreary two hours and 27 minutes, the problem with Perfume is the absolute absurdity of it all. It transforms from an interesting story of an orphan boy and his nose, to a lackluster and exploitative story of animal fat, redheads, and orgies. The outrageous and horribly whimsical scenes might have fared well in the book (where you can picture attractive naked bodies), but just don't translate well to film. It certainly left an awful stench in my nostrils—and my sniffer isn't all that phenomenal. |
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ISSN 1718-5033 Being There Magazine