Where to start....this film is about a French dude with a heightened sense of smell, who becomes a creepy perfumer, determined to capture the scent of innocence for all eternity. Obviously the best way to do this is kill virgins and gather their scent. With animal fat. Duh.
That's really all there is to the premise of the movie. I'll start with a couple of good things. Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman were in it. Why? I have no idea. Dustin Hoffman's character was one of the only things I liked about it, but was inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the film. What I would really love to know is what possessed the two of them to agree to be in this disaster of a movie. Maybe they'd both read the book - I've had several people tell me it's excellent. If you are one of these people then DON'T SEE THE FILM IT WILL RUIN IT FOR YOU!
I have nothing else nice to say so let the ranting begin.
Kiryn pointed out that the director also did the music, some of the writing and a few other things, and perhaps the problem was he was too involved in the film to be able to see its flaws. It's many flaws. I think Kiryn is too kind - I want to know how Tom Twyker (who is now on my list) could watch this back and think that it was ok. All my petty problems aside, even the special effects were crap. Honestly.
The film was narrated - but inconsistently. When the narration kicked in, not only was it naff but the tone was too light for the subject matter and tone of what we were watching. This was further compounded by the fact that the narration always seemed to come in during crowd scenes - maybe in a devious attempt to distract the viewer from the fact that they were incredibly contrived and pathetic - especially the 'ecstacy of the peasants' scene at the end (phrase stolen from Kiryn). Not only were the performances of the extras bad, but the lead performance was terrible. He didn't say much at all, which can work if everything else is in place. It wasn't.
It seems from my rant thus far that there was nothing subtle about this film. Not so! Apparently, the time for the director to attempt to redeem himself with a bit of subtlety was 10 minutes from the end, with a vague and meaningless montage of the first killing - so vague it seemed to have no place at all. Additionally, the final fate of the main character was very obscure - and by this stage, my brain was so bludgeoned with lameness that I didn't care to work it out. The rest of the film was not subtle and the tail end of a two and a half hour film (yes, two and a half hours, but that's a whole rant in itself) was not the time to attempt to make it so.
But seriously for a second, I think the real flaw of this film lay in the translation of the concept from book to screen. I tend to believe that it's much easier to suspend disbelief when reading. It can be done in film, but it takes a damn good director to translate that to film. It just didn't work here. Without fantastic direction who is going to believe that some weedy, stalking psycho can follow his nose half way across France to find the final 'note' of innocence for his master perfume? No one. I could rant more about what wasn't believable but it would spoil the ending.
This, like Marie Antoinette (which I have decided since, was nothing but a vehicle for gorgeous but not particularly original costumes) was a serious case for me of wondering how the makers could watch it back on the big screen and think it was any good.
Oh, and there was an orgy. WTF?
Three words. Three point five.
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