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It has become quite a trend: bringing books, masterpieces from the past and present, to the big screen. There are countless cases of film adaptations. Indeed, one of them brought German Tom Tykwer into the circle of "big names," previously confined to films with less advertising impact (despite the excellent "Run Lola Run").
However, the task Tykwer faced was certainly not one of the simplest: producer Eichinger entrusted him with adapting "Perfume," the editorial boom by German Patrick Suskind, to film. A complex literary work with multiple facets. Above all, a serious (and great problem): bringing to the big screen a story experienced mostly through perhaps the most complex sense to represent in cinema, the sense of smell. In fact, the young Jean Baptiste Grenouille (well played by Ben Whishaw) is born with the incredible gift of a hyper-developed sense of smell, capable of perceiving all those scents that a "normal" person would not be able to catch. His dream is to capture and store scents, particularly human ones.
The story that Tykwer had in his hands is one of those interesting but particularly tricky ones. A too self-referential inclination and the risk of falling into pure fascination are lurking around the corner. Fortunately, Tykwer succeeds in giving substance to a complex story: the choice to faithfully follow the book benefits him and praises his courage. What the Teutonic filmmaker succeeds in most is a well-balanced blend between the purely dramatic soul of the story and the one leaning more towards thriller/horror. In making all this a success, the work is wonderfully done also by Ben Whishaw, perfect in representing one of Tykwer's leitmotifs, namely the inability to approach love, the human difficulty in expressing one's feelings.
That being said, and highlighting the great reconstruction of places and images done by Tykwer and his associates, Perfume is certainly not a masterpiece. Perhaps it is not also because of the novel from which it was taken: too complex to be brought to the screen and to manage to impose itself effectively. A story based on smell is quite complicated to represent. Furthermore, Tykwer (as has happened to him before and will happen in the future), dilutes the film representation with more and more protractions, almost reaching two and a half hours. It is therefore normal that boredom sets in, also due to a story that overall never involves too much. Tykwer is nonetheless to be applauded for his courage in tackling Suskind and above all for bringing European cinema back to a certain filmic/literary level. The inability to relate, the fear of the different, paternal love, literary representation are all themes that pay homage to a partially successful film, but still worthy of being seen.
"The perfume has a persuasive power more compelling than words, appearance, feelings, and will...it penetrates us as the air we breathe penetrates our lungs, fills us, dominates us entirely, there is no way to resist it."
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