"Perfume" is a film that comes to us with impeccable art-house credentials: It's a story about aestheticism, the appreciation of smells, and thus bathed in sensuality. Its director, Tom Tykwer, is responsible for the art-house hit "Run Lola Run," as well as an ethereal adaptation of a Krzystof Kieslowski script with "Heaven." The film is based on a critically acclaimed Euro-best seller by Patrick Suskind, and it's shot in gorgeous, rapturous compositions by Frank Griebe.
As usual with a Tykwer film, "Perfume" is full of visual panache, images that sweep you away with their lushness or daring or sheer imagination. So why, despite all this, does something feel so horribly wrong?
Let us turn to the film's full title, which is "Perfume: The Story Of A Murder." The film's lead character is indeed a killer, and a rather odious and despicable one at that. You'd think that a director from Germany -- where just 50-odd years ago they had a Nazi regime that used the remains of its concentration camp victims as fertilizer and soap -- would have second thoughts about making a film in which the lead character murders young women to boil them down into essential oils.