Review of the Movie Perfume

The movie, Perfume, from the sensually repulsive beginning, to the shockingly metaphorical end, was absolutely astounding.

Going in to this movie I think I had prepared myself for a gory horror flick, not usually my genre, but the previews held fascination for me somehow.

I cannot overstate my awe toward the gutsy filmmakers for visually and morally stunning the movie-goer right from the first vile scene, as if to say, "Here is the child and his story, take it from us!", making themselves not unlike the mother, herself, a woman with no motherly instinct, no human descency, corrupted by the filth her very feet wallowed in day to day, who literally discards her newborn to the streets.

This stunning first scene was used with great cunning to thrust us, the viewer, into a very interesting role throughout the movie, that of sympathizer. In this it reminded me of the same artful ploy engaged in the film Hannibal Rising. Isn't it interesting how, when we see a killer's character from a chronological perspective, birth to present, our feelings for them develop depth and understanding that just doesn't happen when we read about their horrendous crimes in a newspaper?

Anyway, aside from the fact that the film did not emphasize enough the fact that Jean-Baptiste had no scent of his own(which I read in the book synopsis that explained much of his early childhood trauma and rejection), the main character's motivations were clear, from his desire to find the source of the scent of sexual attraction in virginal women, to his obsessive desire to keep this most desirable scent "forever" by preserving it in the form of a perfume.

I found this thought, of preserving someone's essence in a bottle, highly intoxicating myself. I remember as a child running to my mother's bed after she went to work and burying my nose in her pillow, taking in large gulps of her scent and feeling almost as though she were still there with me.

The most pathetic thing in the movie was the thought that, had the poor young man possessed social skills, he would probably have wooed plenty of women into his mad experiments of perfumery without killing them. Indeed, he tried, but ended up coming across as perverse, ironically, with one society would consider perverse, herself: a prostitute. Despite his social bumbling, he was very clever and managed to create a perfume from the scent of numerous women which, when wafted about a crowd of violently vengeful onlookers, wooed them into a giant orgy, and of course, his pardon. This became the second most stunning scene of the movie, and, perhaps, more unrealistic one than the very first scene of which I spoke.

In the end, Jean-Baptiste got what he wanted; the essence of women preserved in a bottle and the adoration of thousands, and like some of us, he realized too late that his desires had consumed his humanity. In his case, this became a literal element of the film as his body was consumed by the masses from his hometown.

As a literary work, I think this movie was phenomenal. It had all the elements I would look for in a piece meant to become a classic: a well-developed main character, well-defined conflict, human struggles and philosophical ideas that transcend the story's fixed plot into our evolving world, well-blended metaphors, and a satisfactory, if not, illusory, ending.