The morbid but ever-intriguing novel by Patrick Suskind continues to project an unwavering yet repulsive fascination; the reported 15 million copies sold are a telling testament to that. Also, it has got to be one of the most difficult texts to film. The mystical world of scents and aromas cannot be heard or seen and Suskind provides a compulsive and quite brilliant account of it, but is helped by literatures pact that the notion of this world is to be completed by each reader’s imagination and power of association. Cinema however is much more unequivocal; it is the director’s imagination and association that does all the heavy lifting and the viewers’ only powers is to like it or not. Well, there will be both admirers and detractors of director Tom Tykwer’s take on Suskind’s novel, but I am sure none will easily forget it regardless of their stance. Tykwer’s film is hard to like, but it is persistently and wickedly fascinating and as such it goes a long way in equaling the source book’s impact. I therefore admire it wholeheartedly.

The story’s protagonist is one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a boy born in the pungent and hostile universe of mid-18-century France. He becomes a furtive survivor drawing strength off his two talents who seem complement each other perfectly:

Grenouille has the most acute sense of smell and is able to break down each fragrance into its composite parts, but he also has absolutely no smell of his own. His talent lands him an apprenticeship with a once famous master perfumer named Baldini (Dustin Hoffman). The latter ushers him into the world of combining aromas into a greater whole and Grenouille witnesses the startling effect these have on people. He is soon able to concoct divine fragrances, but now a greater ambition is taking shape. For him the way people perceive beauty, power, decency or love is ruled by the aromas they inhale and he becomes obsessed with distilling these. He wants to distill and bottle the essence of being human.

It is somewhat natural that Grenouille’s one extraordinarily strong sense comes to dominate no others. Grenouille does not have friends, he does not feel the need to communicate and when he does, there’s only one way he knows how to via his nose. He discovers the hypnotizing effect of women, his sexual impulse is transformed into something else altogether and the result is murder. When he discovers that the only way he can complete his ultimate perfume is through killing, he goes about this in a calm, practical way which is both logical and horrifying. And it is compulsively watchable all the way.

Yet how can one visualize the allure of scent or make us care about a character who does not feel the need to speak or convey emotion? Director Tom Tykwer’s way of doing this is by cranking up the film’s impact on all the senses he has influence on. The visuals are enthralling and sometimes unforgettably shocking, while John Hurt provides a masterful narration of events and facts that cannot be put across via images. The cast is comprised mostly from British actors, with only Dustin Hoffman’s eccentric performance contrasting the otherwise somewhat solemn tone of the proceedings. One’s instinct is to bring up Hoffman and Alan Rickman, the other high profile name, as the film’s standout performers, but in fact it is newcomer Ben Whishaw that merits the highest accolades as Grenouille. This is a character which one could understand, even sympathize, but hardly like and Whishaw manages to negotiate this quite convincingly.