Pajiba

Shame, it sounds like they've squandered the work. The best retelling of Suskind's work remains Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice"

The book never tries to make Grenouille sympathetic just destructively obsessed and from the review it seems like straying away from that may have been the key flaw.

All I need to read is the first paragraph. I went and saw this last week and I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was about this film that left me really unimpressed. But you nailed it. The last pseudo-orgy scene was just too ridiculous for words. It could've been so much more! Ugh. What a waste.

I read the book about 10 years ago. When I was finished, all I felt was anger. I was angry because the book was SO BAD, but I kept reading it, hoping it would get better. It didn't. I was angry at the person who gave it to me, because that was a mean thing to do to me. I was angry because it could have been really good- but like the movie, there was no real character development. I didn't care about the main character or any of his victims... I didn't even care about the little dog, and I'm a dog person. I was so pissed that I made my best friend read it, too, just to be a bitch. Well, also to see if it was ME or the book. SHE hated it, too. It was just bad. Bad bad bad badbadbad and also, it was bad.

I can't believe they made that shit into a movie.

I have to agree with you Hattie. I thought this book was pointless, and rambling. Reading it made me feel greasy, like I needed a mental shower. Yuck, Yuck, YUCK! I felt like it was a shitty horror premise masquerading as literature. The kind of book people read so they can feel smart, but in reality it offers no challenge to the reader at all, just a meandering story about an unlikable dude with a fucked up sniffer. I'm not surprised the movie kind of sucks, since the source material is so bad. Alan Rickman, COME ON! You are SO far above this.

I read this book a year or so ago and actually really liked it -- as pulp fiction. It kind of escaped me that it was supposed to be literature; if you read it with low expectations it's totally enjoyable.


The most intriguing thing about the book for me, though, was that the protagonist had no scent of his own, and how everything else was depicted as flowing from this. Granted, the whole thing is implausible, but it gave a motive both for the abuse he suffered (supposedly his lack of scent made him alien/disturbing to the people he encountered) and the atrocities he later committed (he found that he could create scents for himself that would powerfully and favorably influence how people reacted to him). Was his lack of odor totally dropped from the movie, or just not mentioned in the review?


In fact, two of the flaws mentioned in the review -- that the audience had no sympathy for the boy despite the horrible things done to him, and that no one suspected him of the murders later -- sounded to me like the movie was adhering to the book quite closely, since those were supposed to be exactly the effects his original lack of scent and later mastery of perfume had on people. I guess that got lost in the translation to the big screen -- drat.


If the movie were half as much fun as the book I'd be glad to go see it, but it sounds like too much was taken out. Was it just a bad adaptation of sensationalist source material, then?

I learned at a screening in October that this film would be polarizing. You love it or you hate it, and that's fine. Film happens that way. But I will say that I find it a glaring ommission to not even mention one of the most haunting scores ever to be composed for film, for the delicate and menacing score is by far this project's strongest asset.

Great review as always. I only saw the preview, and even that made the film look pretentious and pointless. One thing about your "he could just move to Chelsea" comment, Jeremy - I hope you weren't meaning to suggest that weird fetishes are primarily the domain of gay men. I'd have to take issue with that! If you meant it would be easier to find enough people to form a weird fetish club in Chelsea,then,well, I'll give you that.

Wow, I am surprised the book is getting made into a movie. A bad movie, by the sounds of it.
I actually really liked the book when I read it about 4 years ago. I found the writing lyrical and lovely, and unusual. The main character was both deplorable as well as sympathetic. He had no true personality, no scent of his own, and I found him pretty goddamn creepy.
No doubt the movie will leave a whole lot out, which is unfortunate.

This is for the people who seem to hate the book: read it in german, it is so beautifully written, it takes your breath away
if you don't speak german you will never get that, sorry
i saw the movie a few months ago, and it is actually not bad, just boring, it really doesn't connect with the audience

keep in mind this is a critics review! if you take any joy in the cinema than you will enjoy this film. it chronicles the fascinating journey of a man with a great sense of smell who strives to share his gift yet is cursed with the inability to connect or remain close to those that dare show him compassion, its no wonder that the audience fails to do so as well, therein lies the tragedy of his talent. we dont care about the women who he kills because the story is about his mission, his obsession, and ultimate self-sacrifice, not the murders themselves. the film itself is beautifully rendered and the execution turned massive orgy scene on its own is worth the price of admission. see for yourself, i found that i was never waiting for it to end when the narrative lacked connectivity or intensity since there was so much to admire about the cinematography.

I absolutely loved this book when I read it a year ago. I think it truly brings alive a world of smeI absolutely loved this book when I read it a year ago. I think it truly brings alive a world of smell and makes you see the world in a different way. It's not really about the characters: they're just there to add some flesh to the basic premise, which is wonderful - how much do we realise how smell influences us? As someone has already mentioned, scenes in the book explain how the odourlessness of the protagonist shields him from suspicion; how he distils the smell of modesty, insignificance, beauty, and uses it to influence people. The book conjurs up smells I never thought about before: smells of stone, glass, the strange smells of people and how they can influence us. Far fetched perhaps - but it certainly made me see the world in a new way.

So just from that really I'm not convinced the film can translate all that sensory overload on to the big screen. Yet the review only seems pessimistic about character development. Well, in the book there was none. And that wasn't really the point. Do you want to make Grenouille some sort of modern tragedy hero, all sensitive because of his childhood, so we feel sorry for him? I thought he was meant to be a sociopath. That's what's so fascinating about him - his drive takes us into a whole different world.ll and makes you see the world in a different way. It's not really about the characters: they're just there to add some flesh to the basic premise, which is wonderful - how much do we realise how smell influences us? As someone has already mentioned, scenes in the book explain how the odourlessness of the protagonist shields him from suspicion; how he distils the smell of modesty, insignificance, beauty, and uses it to influence people. The book conjurs up smells I never thought about before: smells of stone, glass, the strange smells of people and how they can influence us. Far fetched perhaps - but it certainly made me see the world in a new way.

So just from that really I'm not convinced the film can translate all that sensory overload on to the big screen. Yet the review only seems pessimistic about character development. Well, in the book there was none. And that wasn't really the point. Do you want to make Grenouille some sort of modern tragedy hero, all sensitive because of his childhood, so we feel sorry for him? I thought he was meant to be a sociopath. That's what's so fascinating about him - his drive takes us into a whole different world.

Oops, the last paragraph is repeated, sorry about that guys (copied and pasted when my computer messed up)

Sam, nicely put :) I was just too lazy to say all that!
Cap, I did not read the book in German, but English. I still liked it a great deal though. Maybe I didn't 'get it', but the fact that I enjoyed it so much is enough...although I am now compelled to learn German!

I HATED this movie, but amazingly two of the people I saw it with loved it. It certainly generated opinions. Your review completely captures my feelings about it. It just felt so gratuitious and lacking in genuine emotion or importance. The main character is completely unsympathetic, the supporting characters without dimension, and the climax (pun intended) ridiculous and ultimately pointless. So, okay, scent has the power to transport according to the film (people see God and practice free love as a result of his dead-virgin perfume), but in the end the transformation is fleeting and inconsequential, and society remains harsh and cruel.

I suppose you didn't read the book, Jeremy, because otherwise you might have some explanation for the things (or well, the thing) you questioned, why he wasn't a suspect after the first, or really second murder. Apart from that scene on the field being invented for the movie, the book makes it very clear that his own lack of scent makes people basically just ignore him. They don't notice he's there, or if they do, they don't pay much attention, because he has a slightly creepy aura and they want to avoid him as much as possible.

And I disagree that you don't sympathize with Grenouille - I found myself doing that way more than in the book, because there he is just a monster with no redeeming qualities at all. In the movie, the first murder actually happens sort of by accident, in the book he just kills her knowing exactly what he is doing. And, even though this is probably a personal thing, he just looks so fragile that I can't help but feel a little sorry for him.

And just to end this with my personal opinion - I loved both the book and the movie. I thought the way Tykwer tried to translate the whole scent-thing to screen was astonishing and achieved quite the desired effect.

Since my search of an appropriate ending point is getting me nowhere, I'll just stop now.

Haven't seen the movie but did read the book (in translation) a while back, and after scanning these comments it seems like I might be the only person who found Grenouille-on-the-page to be a sympathetic (enough) character--at least in the literary sense (that is, there was enough reader-character attachment to make things work for me).

Like a lot of you guys here, I read the book and had a strange and irrational reaction to it. It absolutely knocked me off my feet when I first read it, and for about a month and a half, I reread it continually just to figure out what was so mesmerizing about it and why I liked it so damn much, until I had to give it away to a friend. I read a lot and I've never done that before with any other book before in my life. So you can understand how I might feel protective about the source material in a way. And I couldn't see then how anyone could make it into a movie, as even Stanley freaking Kubrick threw his hands up and admitted an adaptation was beyond his abilities.

I saw the movie and liked it, but I can honestly understand why it's such a difficult movie to watch. I thought the cinematograpy and score were beautiful, and it was a great take on a difficult book overall. I was really impressed by the guy who played Grenouille. I thought he made him sympathetic in a way the book never tried to do, and was so intense it gave me chills.

But ultimately a movie should be able to work independently of the book it was based on. Saying "it would make more sense if you read the book" doesn't excuse flaws in the story. And it breaks my heart to do so, but I agree with the review, the movie as a whole just doesn't work.

I haven't read the book but I saw the movie in German. I agree that there is something about the movie that doesn't connect; the movie was so cold that I was just glad the damned thing was over! Every German I know who's read the book loved the movie, and won't even accept my opinion that the movie was BORING. I personally felt that Wong Kar Wai would've done a better job.

I'm going to see this. You people are so precious; "ooh, that icky book". I'll go see it just to spite you. The book is fine. It falls short of greatness as a novel by being one long prose poem; it belongs to the same class as Maldoror. When are they filming Les Chants de Maldoror?

Yeah, so I saw this movie Sunday night. I thought the beginning was slow (altough the kid playing Jean-Baptiste at 5 was gorgeous, and not in a pedophile kind of way). The middle I liked. I dig Dustin Hoffman, and am not ashamed to admit my huge crush on Alan Rickman. The end? WTF. A town orgy for chrissakes. Uhm, no.

I read this review (and it was mah-velous, dahling, and my curiosity was piqued enough to spend $8. Geez, I wish my theatre'd had a matinee...

I am seriously in love with you. Not only did you write a review of Brokeback Mountain that was as beautiful and sensitive as the movie itself but you wrote: "[I]magine the Brothers Grimm rewritten by Charles Dickens as a letter to Penthouse Forum" and "[M]y only desire was for the sweet surcease of the closing credits." Would that I could call you my own. Your reviews are so much better than bad movies warrant.

The reason you don't understand most of the things you said don't make sense, is because you didn't read the book. I do agree that some of the book does not translate well to screen, but considering it's a book about scent, they did a bang-up job. Grenouille is not supposed to be sympathetic. No one suspects him because he is scentless and therefore hardly noticeable to anyone. Things like this are not understandable unless you read the book.

The only way this could have been better was by having the different scents in the cinema! Seriously, I was expecting a much better review. The whole point of this thing is translating the world of scent to screen, which was done brilliantly. It was kinda creepy, it was kinda funny. It was great. Go watch it now!

Having read the book, I felt the problem with the movie Grenouille character was that it made him too likeable. He 'Could never love, or be loved'? Blech. The book worked better, though I still enjoyed the film, as eye and ear candy, if nothing else.

I saw the movie and loved it. I would pay money to see the movie again. Want to buy the video but cant find it.
What people fail to realize is this is "how it was" it that era, in poor sections.

Let me state firstly, that I have loved the book, unabashedly.
But this was a terrible film... and it made me reappraise the book, really the story is horrendously misogynistic at it's heart - that a woman's smell is the smell to beat all smells, talk about objectification. So many things in the film were so weak; smelling Laura across many miles, assuming a cave has no smell [clearly never been in a cave]. But it was the orgy at the end that really pissed me off, where it wasn't just men that found the smell irresistible, but strangely woman as well. There was a lot of 'guy on girl' and 'girl on guy' action, and some 'girl on girl' action [but shot in that way that titillates blokes]. And yet the most powerful aromatic drug in history was still not enough to cause a guy to touch a guy? Is this the best a European film can do in 2006?