Book to Film; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Author: Patrick Suskind

Director: Tom Tykwer
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Writer(s):  Andrew Birkin, Bernd Eichinger and Tom Tykwer

Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
Dustin Hoffman as Guiseppe Baldini
Alan Rickman as Richis
Rachel Hurd-Wood as Laura Richis
Karoline Herfurth as The Girl with the Plums


Perfume: The story of a Murderer was published  in 1985, written by German writer Patrick Suskind. The story, quite obviously, revolves around the stalking and killing of young girls. The thing that set this apart from crime and murder mystery novels was the motive for murder. It was not their looks, youth or virginity the murderer was after, it was their scent.

The stories main character is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphaned perfume apprentice in 18th century france. Jean is born with an amazing and unmatched sense of smell, from yards away he could smell the scent of wood or water. What's very interesting is that Grenouille himself does not have a scent.

Grenouille becomes obsessed with trying to obtain the scent of people, girls in particular. He kills girls that have just reached sexual maturity and extracts the scent from them, He murders a number of girls (24 in the book, 13 in the movie) in order to complete a perfume, one girls scent is one 'note' in the
perfume.

I really enjoyed this conversion from text to film, I believe all the changes that were made were necessary. Ben Whishaw played Grenouille exactly how I imagined him. With a sort of strange other-worldy quality to him, and I don't believe that he thought he was really doing right by those killings. A lot of great books haven't translated well to the big screen. But I believe that Perfume: the story of a Murderer was done superbly. Was changed just enough to suit movie-goers and yet stayed true to the original text.

The girl with the plums scene was particularly well done, the music was magic. Although I do believe the change in the girls age was a shame, Karoline Herfurth is a beautiful actress and a beautiful woman. But that's what I believe is wrong with this scene, she is a woman and not a girl. In the books, all the girls, not just the plum girl, are described as being budding young girls, just reaching their womanhood, Thats what made the story so creepy and woeful. It was an unnecessary change, in my opinion.

I give the book 5 stars;

The film 4 stars;;

And the translation between the two 4 stars;