perfume: the story of a murderer
Based on the 1985 german book, Perfume: the story of a murderer revolves around Jean-Baptiste Grenouille and his quest to find the perfect scent. As you would imagine, he would stop at nothing to aquire it.
The opening scenes will set the tone for the rest of the movie. Born in a fish market under the table by his mother, Jean is left for dead with the rotting carcasses of fishes. Seems that his mother has done this before, as she routinely cuts the umbillical cord and kicks the baby away!
Instead of dying in the midst of rotting fishes, maggot infested meat and slaughtered pigs, Jean Baptiste lets out a cry. The cry that leads his mother to the gallows.
The rest of the movie chronicles Jean-Baptistes life as he attempts to learn more about the art of perfuming and his motivations behind it. It explores themes such as obsession, immortality, loneliness and the thin line between genius and madness.
I found the movie a little overlong (2 hours and 10 minutes), and it loses a little of it’s steam somewhere in the middle. However, the payoff at the end is literally quite jaw dropping.
I’d definitely recommend this film, if you are into unsettling yourself and going “oh shit, did I just see that?”
ps: Stephanie watched this film in the cinema here in Malaysia and they didn’t censor anything ! There is a lot of nudity involved and it’s quite the key element in this film. Wow, has our censorship board finally grew up ?
Interesting movie. Wondering if it will be shown here in Manila. Hmm, lots of nudity. I doubt then if the local censors will approve it. Or if they do approve, probably more than half the nude scenes will be removed, and we the audience are left with an incoherent plot. Hahaha!
oooooo sounds like an experimental movie, which is right up my alley
Haven’t watched a good foreign film for so long. Used to have a nice collection of them. Ah.
[angelo] Oh , interesting to know that Malaysia is not the only country to have draconian censorship boards.
[hedonistic] it’s an english speaking film made in germany, so no hollywood bullshit. not that i don’t like hollywood films, just that sometimes they don’t dare speak out enough …
you only need to mention nudity. i’m watching!!!
I have watch this in cinema 2 ! Yaya, really can see abit of those xxx things. I watch a downloaded version and found that they actually sensored alot alot alottt of part , terpaksa lo.
But I only like the front part of the movie actually, dun really enjoy the story line - esp at the end of it..cannot accept a ~ sobx =(
i missed the first 5 minutes….
but yeah i was surprised that they didn’t censor much…esp the whole orgy bit at the end…haha..noticed there were guy-girl, girl-girl..but no guy-guy hehehe
this is the BEST movie I’ve watched this year… I’ve even read the book first before I went to get the DVD.
They kenot censor the nude part, or else the movie doesnt make any sense at the end… two thumbs p for this movie, I like~!!