'Perfume"

Next on the list of DVD’s is a strange little movie I found a while back that did not receive much fan fair that I can remember, and for one particular reason which I will explain later, I can understand why. This being said, it is a very interesting film none the less.

Perfume is set back in 18th century France when Vanity among the rich had ran rampant in almost every conceivable form. Jean Baptiste (played by Ben Wishaw) was born from a prostitute in the streets, and left for dead. By chance he was picked up by strangers and placed in an orphanage. For some reason Jean was given the talent of scent. He could pick out the most miniscule scent of anything around him in some instances in the movie even miles away being carried on the wind. Smell becomes his life. His first taste of perfume fascinates him and becomes his obsession. By chance he becomes the apprentice of a once famous perfume maker Giuseppe Baldini (played by Dustin Hoffman.) Guiseppe guides Jean in the art of perfume making after realizing his gift of smell, but Jean eventually figures out that this art form can be taking to a level the world has never scene, unfortunately it requires the captured scent of women but to capture each sent, the woman must be murdered. There are quite a bit more twists and turns to this movie but I simply don’t have time to get much deeper into them.

Director Tom Tykwer doesn’t have much in the way of an American movie track record, so I don’t really have anything to compare him to, however there are a lot of great aspects to this film. The cinematography is nothing less then spectacular. The costumes, the over all look of that time period, the acting, everything about this project are top notch with the exception of one thing. The ending. Oh dear Lord......The ending.....

Hollywood has butchered the endings of movies for oh I don’t know, since film was invented, but nothing can compare to this. The ending of this story is so ridiculously stupid that you absolutely MUST see it for yourself. After watching this very well put together piece, I was expecting a great but what I thought would be a predictable finish. What unfolded before my eyes still to this day has me baffled. I tried to put myself in the writers head if only just for a moment, and I wanted so desperately to understand what part of his brain fell out of his left ear as he put pen to paper, but it just did not add up in any way. I’m sitting here now trying to figure out how to rate this movie, and I’m still confused as to what to do. I recommend this film for two reasons. #1 - because until the ending it was very good. #2 - as I said before you must see the ending and see if you can figure out what I could not.

Taking the ending out of the equation, my rating for this movie is 7.5 out of 10.00