Again I've proved myself to be devoid of any (useful) knowledge concerning the literary world. I now see I've spent too long staring at screens (cinematic and otherwise) and not long enough reading books, and more to the point listening to other people talk about books. 'Perfume' written by Patrick Suskind way back in 1985 is apparently one of the great unfilmable/unadaptable books, mainly because of it use and descriptions of smells. The naysayers were of course wrong as 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' has now made it to the screen. German director Tom Tykwer uses visual tricks and clever editing to bring the subtleties of smells to a visual medium, and while the results are mixed they're not all together unsatisfying.

Set in 17th century Paris, Perfume is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played here by british newcomer Ben Whishaw), a boy with a unique gift; a sense of smell so sensitive it shapes and moulds his entire world to such an extent it leads him to kill. At the beginning of the film we see Grenouille being born into the extreme poverty of the Parisian ghettos, raised as an orphan and subsequently sold into slavery as an animal skin tanner. His life, if you could call it that, is dirty, brutal and disposable.

While on a delivery for the tannery Grenouille smells a woman selling fruit in the street. He is so bewitched by her scent he follows her and ends up accidentally killing her. His obsession with trying to recreate this woman's smell leads the virtually silent lead character to an internship under the tutelege of washed-up perfumiere Giuseppe Baldini (played by Dustin Hoffman). Monsieur Baldini teaches him the craft of creating Perfumes, refining scents and distilling essential oils. Despite great success as a perfumiere, Grenouille is fixated on recreating the one smell that lies out of his reach, the smell of his first victim.

It's not often you see a film as visually stunning as 'Perfume', and It came as no surprise to learn it is the most expensive film ever to come out of Germany. The only film (on a visual level) my mind can come close to comparing it too is 'Amelie' and maybe on a certain level even 'Hero'. Tykwer handles the visual story deftly, using large sweeping set pieces to set scenes, and cutting to extreme close-ups of fish being gutted and fruit being sliced or great pans over fields of lavender to imply on-screen smells.

Ben Whishaw is excellently creepy as the always grimey lead character Grenouille (another beautiful visual touch, practically everyone and everything in this film is consistantly dirty) and keeps himself on the right side of a Hanibal Lecter impression; detatched, talented and psychopathic. Hoffman is funny as the bumbling perfumiere; manipulative, but caring. The only downside to his portrayal being his strange Anglo-Italian accent, which sounds like it was bumped from a low-brow sitcom. Alan Rickman plays a small part as the father of one of Grenouille's obsessions, but unfortunately in my mind Rickman will always be 'Hans Gruber', so no matter what his on-screen persona says I only ever hear "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."

I went to see this film anticipating a sprawling historical epic. And while the visuals certainly deliver the story felt to me more like a simple yet dark-hearted Fairytale; the kind of film Tim Burton has been trying to make his entire career, but always fails to fully realise. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just wasn't what I was expecting. I think my main problem with the film was that I found it hard to sympathise with many of the characters, I felt detatched. The only character we spend a large amount of time with is the semi-mute Grenouille and his story, thoughts and feelings are described to us through narration, a mechanic that keeps us constantly at arms length.

Tom Tykwer expertly crafts a semi-fantasy world around the lead character and instills this world with such lustre and depth (at least visually) that you come out of the film feeling almost as grimey as the people on screen. The story (so i'm lead to believe) remains largely intact and is treated with a lot of respect by Tykwer, who, if anything, feels like he's been a little too restrained and could have done with focusing less on remaining faithful to the book and more on bringing a bit more soul to the film.

Perfume is definitely a film I would recommend seeing in the cinema, the only place that can really do it's visual depth justice. Despite some minor problems with pacing and a lingering feeling of not getting to know the characters as well as we would like, the story is excellently carved out by Tykwer. The film as a whole came as close to making me feel like a grimey Parisian peasant as I ever want to get, and as dark as it seems, it did make me stop and smell people when I got out on the street.