Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 21, 2022

Patrick Süskind's maiden novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (1985) was first published in Switzerland and has gone on to become an international bestseller. The Los Angeles Times reported that after it was initially published in German, the book was translated in 45 languages and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. (They may be a lot more since these figures were recorded when the movie adaptation came out in early 2007.) The film rights to the novel were pursued by such directors as Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick, who ultimately regarded it as "unfilmable." Süskind was highly skeptical about how it'd be translated to the screen so he was very cautious about releasing the rights to anyone. Enter Bernd Eichinger, who reportedly adapted the novel into a play. Eichinger was instrumental in shepherding the film project, serving as producer and co-writing the script with two other scribes. Tom Tykwer states on the DreamWorks/Paramount featurette that he read Perfume in 1986 and had the exact opposite reaction of Kubrick about its cinematic capabilities.

Like the novel, the film is set in 1738 Paris where a fishmonger (Birgit Minichmayr) goes into labor on the cobblestones of a fish market. The woman has had some prior miscarriages and when it appears that she will attempt to do away with her newborn, Parisians present report her. She's later sent to the gallows for infanticide. Young Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played by Alvaro Roque at age 5 and Franck Lefeuvre as an adolescent) is placed in a dreadful orphanage where kids are mean to him. As he grows into a young adult, Grenouille (now played by Ben Whishaw) gets a job working for a brutish man named Grimal (Sam Douglas) at a tannery. Ever since he was a boy, Grenouille recognized that he had a proboscis that gave him an extraordinary sense of smell. The irony is that Grenouille has no odor on his person. One evening he spots a pretty young lady (Karoline Herfurth) with auburn hair who has a pungent scent. The woman is a street vendor who carries a basket of persimmons, which she thinks Grenouille is interested in buying some. When they hear voices, Grenouille grabs her and covers her mouth firmly with his hand. Grenouille is not initially aware that he has asphyxiated her. He tears her clothes off and smells the scent on her sylphlike chest.

Grenouille must have long wanted to escape the squalor in this section of Paris so he visits a perfume store owned by the Italian Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), a master parfumier. Baldini hasn't been selling many perfumes in recent times and welcomes Grenouille as his apprentice. The latter is infatuated with all the aromas in Baldini's bottles and vials so he begins experimenting with different combinations to come up with the most attractive scents. Soon, Baldini receives a bevy of customers into his store who snatch them up. Baldini teaches Grenouille the formulaic process for extracting aromatic oils from flowers and herbs, which is known as enfleurage. Baldini encourages his protégé to head to Provence where he can further develop the oils so Grenouille ends up in Grasse (the south of France). Grenouille deviously transfers these methods to capturing the aroma of women's bodies so he can conceive the "perfect scent." To do this, Grenouille needs thirteen female victims: twelve virgins and a prostitute. He reaches the country house of nobleman Richis, who has a gorgeous red-headed daughter named Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood). She reminds Grenouille of the young woman in the Paris street market and he develops an obsession with her. A playful game of hide-and-seek in Richis's maize-like garden hedgerows turns disconcerting when two ladies end up missing. Soon, female bodies crop up around Grasse and Richis fears that Laura will be next. Will Grenouille get to Laura so he can complete his perfect formula?

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an epic of two contrasting locales. On one part of France, there's the Dickensian streets of Paris with their acrid scents. On the other side is Grasse, home to lush vegetation and a lavender meadow (see Screenshot #18). Grenouille can smell Grasse from many miles away. In his seventh film, Ben Whishaw brings a taciturn and a subtly maniacal presence to master perfumer Grenouille. He's an antihero but since the audience doesn't hear that much from him (which is occasionally filled in by John Hurt's sonorous voice-overs), it doesn't know all of his motives. Both Wishaw and Dustin Hoffman have terrific chemistry together. (The viewer yearns to see more of Hoffman's Baldini.) Alan Rickman gives a commanding performance as an aristocrat who'll do anything to protect his daughter. I was seduced by all the distillations of Perfume's scents and aromas.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Paramount has given Perfume: The Story of a Murderer its US debut on Blu-ray on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 45.78 GB). Tywker's seventh feature film has been available on Blu-ray for many years across Europe and Asia. Why it took Paramount this long to deliver a physical HD release is unknown. Over five years ago, German-based label Constantin Film released a 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray combo pack. Paramount presents the picture in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. DreamWorks Home Entertainment's DVD was reputed to be one of the strongest SD transfers but suffered from some video noise in some background shots. Thankfully, there's no such noise on Paramount's transfer. Overall, the movie is quite dark. The first half of the film is dominated by grays and desaturated colors (see frame grabs 6 and 19). Some of the compositions inside the perfume shops have a bright amber and gold look to them (see capture #9). When the action shifts to Provence/Grasse, the exteriors are quite bright, verdant, and purple (see Screenshot #s 17-18). The image is very clean while retaining grain. Paramount encodes the feature at a mean video bitrate of 31990 kbps.

Paramount has provided seventeen scene selections.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Paramount has supplied an English Dolby TrueHD Audio 5.1 Surround (4591 kbps, 24-bit) and a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround remix (640 kbps) dubbed in French. The sound tracks on the Constantin Film discs only boast a DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1 Surround mix in English or German (48kHz, 24-bit). The sound of Grenouille's shackles was immediately apparent to me as was the noise emanating from the massive crowds that bookend the movie. All dialogue is spoken in English. While range and pitch varies, it was comprehensible to me. Tykwer co-wrote the musical score with Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil. It couldn't be more different than what the three composers crafted for Run Lola Run (1998). They have girl sopranos Chen Reiss and Melanie Mitrano sing a capella for several of the cues on the sound track and boy soprano Victor de Maiziere for one piece. The State Choir Latvija also performs for several tracks. The acoustics are akin to a church setting. The trio of composers came up with a string melody that's performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The other compositions remind me of Richard Robbins's scores for Merchant-Ivory Productions in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Paramount includes optional English and French subtitles as well as English SDH.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole extra, taken from DreamWorks' 2007 DVD, is a making-of featurette produced by Laurent Bouzareau. The Constantin Film 4K UHD/Blu-ray set contains three audio commentaries, a 54-minute making-of doc (which may very well be an expanded edition of the one found on this disc), and 38 minutes of interviews/additional featurettes. It seems that the commentary tracks with crew members are all in German while interviews with the actors are in English with some German dialect on the featurettes.

• The Story of PERFUME (13:54, 480i) - this promotional piece contains interviews with director/co-writer/co-composer Tom Tykwer, screenwriters Bernd Eichinger and Andrew Birkin, production designer Uli Hanisch, cinematographer Frank Griebe, costume designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud, as well as actors Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Rachel Hurd-Wood. Tykwer talks about the challenges of adapting the novel and when he gained notice of Whishaw performing Hamlet on stage (at the Old Vic). Whishaw describes the first scene that he encountered Hoffman. Hanisch provides details on the large sets. All interviewees speak in English, not subtitled.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was previously only familiar with Tykwer's Run Lola Run and nothing in it could have prepared me for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer except for the giant aerial camera swoops. I also wasn't expecting the climax the film delivered and it takes at least some suspension of belief. Ben Whishaw impresses as the toxic perfume maker. Paramount's transfer is excellent, if only to be eclipsed by the HDR on Constantin Film's 4K disc. I would perceive Paramount's Dolby TrueHD Audio 5.1 Surround to be an upgrade over C.F.'s DTS-HD HR 5.1 tracks, though. The English subs on the Paramount are an added bonus over C.F., which only has German subs. I wish the US release had the latter's supplements with English subs, though. For the adventurous cinephile, Paramount's edition of Perfume earns a STRONG RECOMMENDATION.