Cinematic pretense of the highest order doesn't even begin to define this mysogonistic waste of celluloid. It's been a long time since I HATED a movie but this was the most pointless excuse for movie making I've ever seen. Two hours of my life I'll never get back. What's really galling is the craft of production was impressive. I guess this is the European version of "Independence Day" Big buck production wasted on an utterly worthless story and script.
shareI agree with every word about Perfume, but not the comparison to Independence Day. Perfume was drenched with the scent of being meaningful and artistic, but failed to be either well. Independence Day was supposed to be mindless entertainment and it succeeded at that. Maybe I am wrong about Perfume. It did succeed at being an over-the-top creepy film. If the intention of close-ups of a nose sniffing were not supposed to be hilariously MST3K worthy then what the hell? Are you serious? The last scene was without a doubt the most insulting piece of cinema I've seen. I hope this worked better as a book, and the people who liked the movie appreciate it more than enjoy it.
THERE'S NOTHING IN THERE. It's empty. Perfume gives the feeling that there is some deep meaning but fails to have one. Again, maybe the book succeeds here and those who have read it know what to think without the movie helping.
Awful. The only people I know who like it are next-to-illiterate artsy-wannebe types.
Still, if that many people say they found a reason to like it, perhaps I'll try again.
I really like it, I don't consider myself to be an almost illiterate artsy wannabe, I just really love macabre, dark movies and stories that are kind of unsettling, and yeah I think there was probably meant to be some humour in this, especially dark humour, I know I laughed at a few parts!! :-) And yeah, maybe you'll like it, or find something in it you like a little bit better if you watch it again. I've had that happen, where a movie had to grow on me. But then again there have been movies I watched again and it still wasn't for me, so really it's just about what floats your boat!!! I didn't agree with the comparison to "Independence Day" either...I saw almost no connection, except maybe for the fact that they were both supposed to be elaborate and such? But that was the only similarity I saw.
shareI'll try to watch it with an eye toward dark humor then. My (again) almost illiterate artsy wannabe friends built it up to be one of the best movies ever that was true to life and love. I'll just accept that it's going for creepiness and obsession instead.
I still think the ending is bad, but I think it stems from my hatred for hollywood (and other silver screeners) to show us sex when they mean love. Sex is easier to film obviously... and in most cases watch.
Also I kept thinking about Emeril's Essence spice blend.
I definitley know the type of friends you are talking about!!! There were a lot of people I knew in high school who were very much like that...
but yeah! I agree with you that it was going more for creepiness and obsession, and maybe there are different messages about love and such, I didn't actually see that. I saw it with some kind way of sympathizing with somebody we normally would shun and be afraid of, which is interesting! And I was surprised by the ending too. At first I wasn't sure if I liked it, and I do know what you mean that it is frustrating when movies use sex and pass it off as automatically showing love, though the two can be seperate. I've watched it a few times more, and now I kind of see that part as being interesting because all those people were there to witness a fellow person being killed, and they were excited about seeing him be tortured and finally executed, but suddenly, they were overcome with what they saw as "love", even if it was just lust disguised, and each person felt something beautiful and did something they would have never done. Maybe it was just trying to show how something horrible and dark (like killing women and turning them into perfume) into something beautiful, the actual perfume that made people "love" each other instead of hating.
I felt compelled to add a comment to this thread as I really do not agree that this film was bad. When I watched it I felt as it I could smell with my eyes it was that good. I love "arty" films they give you something different to watch from the "mindless entertainment" that comes out of hollywood. I am continually surprised by how much I like french films.
PS. I'm European and I have not read the book but I'm going to after watching the film!!
Superior film. Clueless original poster.
share"Worthless story"? Come now, PERFUME is an extremly faithfull adaptation of Patrick Suskind's novel, one of the top 100 all time biggest sellers. Say what you want about the rest of the movie, the story itself is far from worthless, it' proven to be worth quite a bit!
I'm sellin my soul to the Devil in you
for some the story is gold, for some a waist of time
i loved it, but i do respect other peoples opinions
no point for a cow trying to convince a bee to give milk instead of honey
we're all different :D
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_•| i just love to read...subtitles |•_
Usually I don't take the time to post when I dislike a film. Why waste more time has always been my thought...but after watching this "film" all I can say is that it is one of the WORST movies I've EVER seen in my life. It is horrible! I give it a four, and that is only due to Rachel Hurd-Wood's beauty and that it is a very well made film. But you know dog food can be well made too but doesn't mean I would ever eat it. If you haven't seen this movie, do yourself a favor and don't!
"Time is the fire in which we burn"
I see nothing wrong with this movie at all.
you just have no imagination nor apparent liking for the arts.
Somebody said that it is American's that don't like this movie and/or people who have not read the book. I would have to say this is false, because I am both an American nor have I read the book. I had been trying since the movie came out..to get my hands upon it & finally last night I was able to & it was well worth the wait.
This film is on my worst movie list for sure. The only reason I saw it was because I liked Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior is one of my favorite movies of all time. I am annoyed by people dissing Americans and saying we have no taste in movies. We are diverse and that is a stereotype. I like deep artsy movies but I also say that comedy should be recognized and possibly be seen as a higher art form. Watch Sullivan's Travels for some more insight on that. When real life is rough and the crap is hitting the fan, comedy can perform that miracle of changing a person's life. I see movies like Dumb and Dumber(it does have its flaws) as an excellent film in that way. I hated Perfume but that is my opinion. It did nothing for me.
shareIs "a waist of time" what you feel about a movie if you have a, um, gut feeling you won't be able to stomach it?!
Sorry, couldn't resist...but I agree with your point.
Tom Tykwer just rocked my brain and feelings in this adaptation. Yes, quite different from the book, but the sound (Tom Tykwer).. the image.. the interweaving.. all the levels of meanings and subterfuge... it's an absolute feast of the senses for me. Makes me get goose bumps just thinking of it :) (same as with Aronofsky's The Fountain of that year)
In an other order of ideas, may I humbly remind that great directors were "drawn" by this story and weren't able to do it. And I mean Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick, the latter qualifying the book as "unfilmable". And all of them rank very high in my "favorite directors list", with Kubrick stealing the first position. Tykwer is ... something else... I'll keep an eye on him.
PS: Yes, I know, smell is a sense you can't relay through film and Tykwer uses a lot of "nose shots", but (quote) "Apparently no one pointed out [...] that the book didn't have any actual smells to it and that absence didn't seem to hurt it a bit."
Pffft.
That's a ridiculous, and may I say unconstructive, conclusion to come too.
First of all? Misogyny?
It's a film about a serial killer of women. Do you have the same problem with all the generic horror films with exclusively female targets?
In regards to the fishwife scene at the beginning, THAT was powerful cinema!
I agree that the portrayal of women in the filim isn't glamorous but it's accurate to the difficulties faced by them in those times. If anything the documenting of the awful rights women had in those days is pro feminist!? A gruesome reminder of how far things have improved if any thing.
And the orgy was an orgy. No sexual hatred there.
That adjective was the only constructive critique in your post so not much else to refute, well apart from independence day being the 19th highest grossing film of all time rendering a negative comparisson in terms of "buck wasted" a bit off.
I think the problem is that a lot of Americans seem to think if there are mysogyic characters in a movie or it portaits a mysogynic societry (which means every society until recently. And that's only Western countries) without explictedly condemming it, just showing people or things how they are, then they think the movie would promote mysogyny. Because apparently a movie has to have a message and the audience needs to be told what to think. I noticed a surprising amount of hatred and confusion from Americans towards this kind of movies on imdb-boards. I know there are a lot who get it but also many who apparently don't. It's the same problem with innocent nudity. You always find an American asking whether there is nudity. Not about violence. I have seen a stupid American mother hating on a masterpiece like Whale Rider because one tells some boys that their peen will fall off if they do this and that again. I would love to know what they would think about many Europen childrens movies classics with innocent nudity of children (or frontal nudity of men even like in Astrid Lindgren's wonderful "Ronja, Robbers Daughter"). Some people..
shareOMG , i absolutely LOVED the movie.!
Cinematic brilliance.!!
The ending is perfect.
A MUST watch.
`If you dont get the sarcasm in the Username ,dont bother`
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I liked it, but also liked the book. It isn't supposed to be realistic. It is like a dark fairy tale for adults.
It followed the book very closely, so maybe it's the book you don't like. I personally liked it. For a movie over two hours, it was engaging, even though I already read the book. Though the book does have deeper areas the movie doesn't address, but who wants to see a 10 hour movie?
I thought it was well acted and well written. I guess the 7.5 says it all.
But, I have to add, maybe this isn't the type of movie for you or maybe you didn't get what I got out of it. There are a lot of underlying themes to this movie and it is very dark. But it isn't against women at all. No more than comedies that degrade women or horror films...I am not sure why this one stands out as incredibly misogynistic (you spelled that word wrong). It isn't much worse that any suspense film or TV series that deal with a murderer killing females. I see worse on prime time TV.
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I watch a lot of movies, and liked the majority of it. HOWEVER, the ending killed it for me. I kept waiting for him to realize that he was dreaming and get bashed by that club/crucified (a lá that Twilight Zone episode "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"). I understand that it was based on a novel, but this is no excuse for such a fault in the film's reality. The "orgy scene" and what followed clashed with the scenes with Dustin Hoffman for example, which still had some whimsy about them but were not in the same universe with the afore mentioned scenes. For me, it was as if toward the end of Pulp Fiction it is revealed that they really exist in The Matrix. Both good films, but ruined when smashed together (much like scents i guess). 6/10
"A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer."
-Mitch Hedberg