Perfume
| Year: | 2006 |
| Production Co: | Constantin Film Produktion GmbH |
| Director: | Tom Twyker |
| Writer: | Tom Twyker/Patrick Suskind |
| Cast: | Ben Wishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, Evan Rachel Wood |
The most expensive production in German history, and it shows; as slickly styled and directed (by Tom un Lola un Twyker) as any Hollywood movie.
With a very marketable hook (albeit one that didn't impress audiences), it's all about a young man with a supernaturally powerful sense of smell who wants to capture the scent of beautiful young women to bottle the ultimate olfactory experience.
As if that didn't give Twyker and the screenwriters enough potential (lots of nubile young women, murder and a kaleidoscope of sequences and scenes about distinctive smells), Patrick Suskind - on whose book its based - even gave them a climactic mass orgy when hero Grenouille (Wishaw) unleashes the scent he's been perfecting.
Born to poverty, he rises slowly through the cruel ranks of his lowly station I 17th century Paris in a series of episodes that see him working for self-involved and fading perfumer Baldini (Hoffman, clearly enjoying himself), his self-imposed exile in a rural mountain cave and his move to the town of Grasse to pursue his goal.
That goal includes the scent of pretty young girls, who for some reason he has to kill to capture. But the most beautiful scent will surely come from his most prized prey, Laura (Wood), daughter of a level-headed Nobleman (Rickman, overplaying to the extent he comes off hammy).
Every technical detail of the story telling is faultless and lavish, and far worse books have been bought to life on screen.
With a very marketable hook (albeit one that didn't impress audiences), it's all about a young man with a supernaturally powerful sense of smell who wants to capture the scent of beautiful young women to bottle the ultimate olfactory experience.
As if that didn't give Twyker and the screenwriters enough potential (lots of nubile young women, murder and a kaleidoscope of sequences and scenes about distinctive smells), Patrick Suskind - on whose book its based - even gave them a climactic mass orgy when hero Grenouille (Wishaw) unleashes the scent he's been perfecting.
Born to poverty, he rises slowly through the cruel ranks of his lowly station I 17th century Paris in a series of episodes that see him working for self-involved and fading perfumer Baldini (Hoffman, clearly enjoying himself), his self-imposed exile in a rural mountain cave and his move to the town of Grasse to pursue his goal.
That goal includes the scent of pretty young girls, who for some reason he has to kill to capture. But the most beautiful scent will surely come from his most prized prey, Laura (Wood), daughter of a level-headed Nobleman (Rickman, overplaying to the extent he comes off hammy).
Every technical detail of the story telling is faultless and lavish, and far worse books have been bought to life on screen.