Oops.

I made a mistake on my 2006 Top Ten Film list* -- Perfume: Story of a Murderer clearly needs to be on it...

Like it or not (and either is a distinct possibility), Perfume is a special, special movie. It is an astounding telling of an astounding tale. I haven't seen director Tom Tykwer's other famous work, Run, Lola, Run (actually, I'm consciously saving it for a rainy day sometime well into the future), but his visual storytelling ability is clearly at the genius level; a true artist. The way in which Tykwer communicates the, oh so essential, sense of smell and the esoterica of the perfumers' art, is a quite simply a tour de force.

Those who don't allow themselves the chance to breathe in the miraculous scent of Perfume are denying themselves the full range of human experience...

9 out of 10.





{*Original 2006 Top Ten Movies list:

World's Fastest Indian
An Inconvenient Truth
Peaceful Warrior
Little Miss Sunshine
Idiocracy (#3)
Crank
The Departed
Apocalypto (#2)
Dreamgirls
Children of Men (#1)


Revised 2006 Top Ten Movies List:

World's Fastest Indian
An Inconvenient Truth
Peaceful Warrior
Little Miss Sunshine
Idiocracy (#3)
Crank
The Departed
Apocalypto (#2)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Children of Men (#1)

Unfortunately, Dreamgirls, an amazing film, has had to be shifted to position #11 for the year 2006...}

I didn't like The Perfume much. I found it an empty work in which you didn't find any trace of the novel's tension nor Tykwer's style nor any good acting.

The movie deserves some credit, but it's definitely hard to praise it too much when you know the book is 100% Masterpiece million times better than the movie. It was a fair adaptation, but nowhere near the book.

Were we all reading the same book?

I never saw the movie, so can't say how good it was. The preview looked good. But I read the book only recently and it was predictable, repetitive, and positively boring from about the 25th page to the last.

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I ask myself the same thing! I was actually complaining the other day about why do I always feel compelled to finish books even if I don't like them. Its a nasty habit I'm trying to break. I guess I finished Perfume because I thought the pretext for the book was a good idea, and kept hoping the actual writing of the book would get better. But yes, I do need to learn to put a book down if I'm not liking it, it's true.

I didn't love the Godfather, but I do admit it was very well made. A director's movie, so to speak, even though in general I just don't think I like mob stories very much. In short, for a mob story, I guess it was better than most. I'm not quite sure what the connection you are making between it and (the book) Perfume? I think its compairing apples and organes. I found Godfather to at least try to deal with the tension of some individual characters in their minds. I didn't get a lick of 'psychology' when reading Perfume.

I thought PERFUME sucked! What really did it in was the horrible, ridiculous finale. What a shame as the movie looked really good and I loved RUN LOLA RUN.

Yep...sounds like a close adaptation of the book, then.

Nice to see some activity in this forum, especially in this old thread - - we just need some more posters who've actually seen the film version of Perfume...

I haven't read the book, but I saw the movie. I loved it. Though the finale was a bit anticlimactic I didn't have a problem with it.

The movie is in my TOP 10 for the year 2006. Though I made that list in January 2007 and haven't revised it, but I think it would still fit nicely inside TOP 10-2006.

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I'm sure it's a matter of taste - - within the context of the movie's story, I personally found Rachel Hurd-Wood to be the perfect choice...

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Visual aspects and performances aside, PERFUME was one big, boring, lame and laughable mess. How anyone can take that ending seriously and think of it as deep is beyond my comprehension. I gave the book a chance but it wasn't any good either.

4/10 (D+)