MovieChat Forums > Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2007) Discussion > Stupid premise

Stupid premise

posted 10 years ago by scootergirl9988
17 replies | jump to latest

I can get past giving a human olfactory senses that would make a dog envious (physically impossible but I'll go with he had a touch of the supernatural) but what I can't get past is making outward physical beauty a requirement for delicious natural scent. The filmmakers had a chance to show that all Grenouille really was interested in was scent by making some of the women pretty, others not so much, still others downright unattractive to the eyes, but instead they bowed to the same old formula: beautiful women = good; ugly women = bad (or in this case, stinky). Of course, the best smelling of them all was the most beautiful. What a surprise.

[–] Simon-140 10 years ago

Perhaps the beauty of the women was supposed to reflect how Grenouille perceived them.

One premise of the book and (to a lesser degree) the film is that scent can distort how we see people: with the right scent, even visually plain women might seem fabulously desirable. (Pheromones work this way, to a limited degree.) However, this is a tricky idea to convey in a film without Smell-o-vision - not to mention the fictional perfume/pheromone of the book and film.

Given these problems, it was probably just easiest for the film makers to represent aromantically desirable women with visually beautiful ones.

(There's also the issue of whether Grenouille liked the smell of certain women because they were visually beautiful, or whether his perception of visual beauty was modified because of the way they smelled - as with pheromones. The novel says little more than the film about the women he finds attractive: he definitely likes wirgins, but that's about it.)

[–] Zombi_Cupcake 10 years ago

Good points.
I am reminded of just a few times in my life I have come across a scent of something that took me back instantly to another time and place. It struck a cord of nostalgia and longing that was purely instinct. It wasn't anything really important on its own, but the scents reminded me of the past more vividly than any photograph ever could.
As a side note, over the last 4 years I have developed an allergic reaction when I inhale perfume from a bottle, no matter how expensive the perfume might be.

The human ' machine ' can be fascinating and frustrating.

[–] Simon-140 10 years ago

Smells are wonderfully evocative, but I have no idea why. I’ll have to investigate this "madeleine effect” a bit more.

Regarding your allergy, did you do anything unusual before you developed it? Any swimming in vats of ethanol or ambergris? (Actually, I’ve heard that even the priciest scents use an artificial ambergris substitutes these days.) I’m sure an allergy specialist could help, but you’d have to be a true perfume fiend to take that path!

[–] guywood 9 years ago

Zombie Cupcake makes a very valid point when he says "I am reminded of just a few times in my life I have come across a scent of something that took me back instantly to another time and place. It struck a cord (chord?) of nostalgia and longing that was purely instinct. It wasn't anything really important on its own, but the scents reminded me of the past more vividly than any photograph ever could."

Occasionally, I am taken back over 75 years when I smell leather upholstery and engine oil. I am transperted back to the rear seat of my father's car and I am four years old. Good, nostalgic stuff!

[–] scootergirl9988 10 years ago

I would agree if the other people in the movie apart from Grenouille also didn't comment on the beauty of the various women, therefore making it impossible for it to have been just Grenouille who perceived them that way. In fact, the fact that they were attractive seemed to make the murders all the more heinous...per usual. Of course, this isn't just a movie thing but a real life issue as well; if a victim is attractive their death is considered all the more disturbing.

There's also the issue of whether Grenouille liked the smell of certain women because they were visually beautiful

Grenouille picked up on scent long before he could see that which attracted him so visuals couldn't have been an influence.

I didn't know that in the book he prefers virgins. That's odd since being a virgin or not has no influence on what a woman smells like. Perhaps it is more an issue of what he doesn't like, i.e. male sperm, than what he does like though I can't imagine that the odor of sperm stays around once a woman goes through her menstrual cycle. You would think children would be his targets since I can't imagine he would find the smell of menstruation all that attractive either.

[–] Simon-140 10 years ago

As you mentioned, the film uses a lot of conventions: the death of the beautiful was considered especially tragic at the time in which the film takes place, because beauty was viewed as a gift from God.

In the novel, bodily smell seems to be indicator of Divine favour, or sin, much like beauty. For example, the baby Grenouille was denounced as a demon by one of his wet nurses, because he had no bodily smell. (The nurse claimed the baby was “unnatural” and ‘hence’ against God. You could view his lack of a smell as indicating the absence of a soul.) The perfume that drove the crowd into an orgy was made of wirgin scent. (I don’t quite understand that.)

In short, I think the film makes more sense, if you have a crude set of medieval Christian spectacles to bring it into some sort of focus. (As a person who’s irredeemably ignorant of such matters, I had some trouble understanding the novel and the film — at least in places. It’s also been a while since I read the book or saw the film.)

[–] duckie_bb 10 years ago

There were plain women in the novel, the film makers made all of them beautiful for the film. The film makers should have stuck to portraying the girls how similar to how they were in the novel instead of making them all pretty but like a previous poster said it was probably easier to show desirability in beauty.

[–] reaseltbim 10 years ago

not all of them were pretty, a couple of them were pretty average (even the nun)
I have no idea what he is talking about

[–] brianrseymour-968-811420 10 years ago

When he was nabbing women in the streets it showed him pull an unattractive woman into a dark doorway in the daylight.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] Simon-140 10 years ago

I thought the premise of the novel and the film were brilliant, especially when you consider how hard it is to translate the world of smells into language or film.

For me, many of the most interesting works frequently rely on premises that might be called "a little silly', or positively outlandish! The premise of 'Rossum's Universal Robots' must have seemed absurd to readers in the 1920s, as must Lem's vision of the conscious planet in 'Solaris' (1962) or Tarkovski's 1972 film adaptation of the novel. The premise of 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' or even 'Melancholia' might be called "a little silly" but I certainly enjoyed the results.

If (like many) you dislike science fiction as a genre, what do you make of the equally "silly" premises of "Being John Malkovitch" or "Fight Club" or "Could Atlas"? (What do you make of Magic Realism?)

Perhaps you prefer films about human interactions or character studies, such as anything by Jane Austen or even (arguably) 'Fanny and Alexander,' If that's the case, then agree that such books and films can be just as rewarding as anything that I mentioned earlier.

I understand that you said that you liked ''Perfume" and only described its premise as being "a little silly." The reason why I've raised so many implicit questions is that I'd be intrigued to hear your more carefully nuanced opinions.

[–] flickfix 10 years ago

I think you missed what he was attempting. It's not that pretty women smell better. It's that he was trying to create a scent that would capture the essence of "beauty", it's turning "beauty" into a scent, so he of course he needed beautiful women.

[–] reaseltbim 10 years ago

I really have no idea what you are talking about because not all of them are pretty.
not as pretty as the main girl. some of them were pretty plain. (the nun was pretty normal looking)
In fact the only ones that I would say were extremely pretty were the plum girl and the girl at the end. the rest seemed to be normal looking.

I dont know what you were expecting, women that looked like witches or something?

[–] BriMargo92 10 years ago

I thought some of the women he murdered were quite plain looking. The prostitute for example wasn't exactly exceptionally beautiful.

In the movie the poor looked like they stunk. Why wouldn't they? They wore dirty clothes and didn't shower often during that time.

So of course the women he went after may have appeared beautiful but really they just had money and could keep their appearances up.

If this issue is what keeps you from liking the movie or even the book then I find that rather sad. Its a great story, very creative and the movie was filmed beautifully.

[–] scootergirl9988 10 years ago

It's actually because the book, and thus the movie, is based on such an amazingly original premise that I was so disappointed by the stereotypical concept that physical beauty equals purity and goodness. There's no doubt that the ultimate object of Grenouille's obsession is an amazingly beautiful woman and the idea of scent being her most alluring feature was tossed from the front row and into the cheap seats in the face of such physical attractiveness. I admit that Ben Whishaw's acting went a long way toward restoring my belief but the film makers insistence on using attractive women kept chipping away at it.

I do have to disagree about him finding cleaner women more alluring. Grenouille had a nose that would make a dog envious. He was able to slice through hundreds of layers to get to the source which, if he found it to his liking, is what his distillation process captured, filtering out everything external whether it was rose water or fish guts. Interestingly his perfect woman was nothing more than a street seller of fruit and wouldn't have been all too clean herself but in this movie appears to have just had herself not only a bath but a shampoo and carefully structured bedhead. What a surprise.

[–] MachoManRandySavage 9 years ago

That's not how it was in the book though. In the book the most beautifully scented woman was also the most beautiful woman. In Grasse it is mentioned how he is killing the towns most beautiful young girls. The girls are described as being physically attractive...should they have changed that to make a P.C. statement about beauty?

There was a time he decided to specifically kill chunky girls in the book, if that makes you happy. I can't remember why.