Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Tom Tykwer

Writers (WGA):

Andrew Birkin (screenplay) &
Bernd Eichinger (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

5 January 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

He lived to find beauty. He killed to possess it.

Plot:

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a superior olfactory sense, creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.

Plot Keywords:

Perfume | Scent | Stench | Search | French

Awards:

12 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Ben Whishaw	...	Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
Francesc Albiol	...	Court Official
Gonzalo Cunill	...	Guard 1 Dungeon
Roger Salvany	...	Guard 2 Dungeon
Andrés Herrera	...	Door Guard (as Andres Herrera)
Simon Chandler	...	Mayor of Grasse
David Calder	...	Bishop of Grasse
Richard Felix	...	Chief Magistrate
Birgit Minichmayr	...	Grenouille's Mother
Reg Wilson	...	Customer - Fishmarket
Catherine Boisgontier	...	Woman - Fishmarket
Núria Casas	...	Woman 2 - Fishmarket
Carlos Gramaje	...	Police Lieutenant - Fishmarket
Sian Thomas	...	Madame Gaillard
Michael Smiley	...	Porter

Also Known As:

Das Parfum - Die Geschichte eines Mörders (Germany)
El perfume - Historia de un asesino (Spain)
Le parfum - Histoire d'un meurtrier (France)
Perfume (International: English title) (informal short title)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for aberrant behavior involving nudity, violence, sexuality, and disturbing images.

Runtime:

147 min

Country:

Germany | France | Spain | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R | Germany:12 | Czech Republic:12 | UK:15 | Ireland:15A | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Finland:K-15 | Netherlands:12 | Singapore:R21 | Brazil:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Japan:PG-12 | Sweden:15 | South Korea:15 | Malaysia:18PL | Argentina:16 | Spain:18 | Australia:MA | Portugal:M/16 (Qualidade) | Philippines:R-18 | Peru:18 | New Zealand:R16

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Constantin Film Produktion

Trivia:

Author Patrick Süskind is known to be very skeptical and for a long time did not want to sell the movie rights to his novel. His experience with producer Bernd Eichinger and others who desperately wanted to turn "Das Parfum" into a movie was shown in the satire Rossini (1997), for which he wrote the screenplay himself. His character is the strange author Jakob Windisch, Producer Bernd Eichinger is portrayed in the character Oskar Reiter. In Rossini, the book everybody was fighting over was changed into a novel about the Loreley-legend. Other characters in this movie are caricatures of the Munich media business.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Midway through the movie a whore appears with a Pekingese dog. The Pekingese were not formally introduced into Europe until midway through the 19th Century when Britain and France "sacked" the Chinese Empire (circa 1860). The Pekingese were kept exclusively in the Chinese Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) until then and maintained by eunuchs. The movie takes place in the mid 18th Century. While it may be possible British or French royalty could have had a Pekingese (although extremely unlikely), a French harlot owning a Pekingese in the 1700's is an impossibility.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Court Official: Quick. We can't hold them back much longer. Hurry. Come on!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Die wilden Hühner und die Liebe (2007)

Soundtrack:

Tarentelle

Unusual. That's why it's great.

wow, a serial-killer movie WITHOUT blood and action and wild chase sequences and stuff like this.

People who are used to fast Hollywood Movies certainly won't be satisfied with this movie. It's really unusual, as the novel is. It's generally difficult to convey something like a SMELL in a book or a movie, and it's also difficult to create a satisfying adaption of a novel. So my personal opinion is that The Parfume Movie is one of the few good adaptations, because it eagerly tries to convey the complicated world of smells and the world of Grenouille and also achieves it in many ways. There are of course some parts missing or changed if you compare novel and movie, but that is always the case with adaptations.

I saw the movie one hour ago and have just read some comments. Some of them are "disappointed" or "boooring", but most of these opinions are really not well founded, so I couldn't make out what EXACTLY was so boring and disappointing... However, I'll keep on dwelling in the magic of the movie, looking forward to other more positive comments...