Perfume, Redux

I don't really know what redux means, but I'm sure I'm using it properly, being the Contess of Context that I am.

I finally watched Perfume, which has just come out on DVD, knowing full well it received mixed reviews. Following my viewing, I read these self-same reviews and was, to put it lightly, startled. What bothered most of the critics who disliked it is that Tom Tykwer tried to do the "impossible" -- film a book about smell. Well, if one can write a book well about smell, surely, making a movie about it would be no more or less difficult. The other seems to be that the people who disliked the movie don't seem to have liked the book (or read it at all) in the first place, but find it irritating that he stayed so true to the book.

Which is bollocks, really. What they all meant to say is that, considering it condensed the most dull third of the novel (that interminable cave scene) into about a minute of film, it really shouldn't have taken two and a half hours. Of course, it's difficult to make an appealing movie where the hero's a sociopath. Of course, it's difficult to evoke what Grenouille was going through. And?

The book was a cult hit. So it's no shock the movie wasn't going to be an overwhelming success. The pacing's slow and luxe, there's noone to empathize with (Alan Rickman's too one-track, and none of the girls are fully explored, but then again, we're largely seeing through the eyes of an obsessed man, who doesn't really consider the humanity of the populace, so that's not too shocking). I suppose if Tom really wanted a success, he should have changed the book a bit, made Laura more full a character, so we'd be rooting for not to die. But really, we don't care so much. We'd rather Grenouille finish his perfume (the tragedy would be if he failed to achieve that), and when he gets what he wants, and it still isn't enough, the audience still doesn't care because, well, how close can you get to a sociopath.

Not to say the actor doesn't do a great job playing Grenouille. He does. He's just not a character you go to bat for.

The movie's a funny thing. Filmed like a Rembrandt painting, when it's got an Irvine Welsh sort of soul, that's incongruous, and that's why Perfume is likely to leave alot of critics cold.

So. That's explaining that. Why did some like it? Because they loved the book, because they've been fans since Run, Lola, Run, because the acting by Ben Whishaw is superb, because it's a whole-hearted attempt, because it's lovely and because who doesn't love a movie with Alan Rickman? Because it's talking about needing to be human and failing, and, if you've got a strong stomach, you can appreciate that.