Magnificently stunning! A film that works its visual wonders, and perhaps a film for the senses! Not only does Perfume petrifies us with its images but it definitely let us smell its dark and seductive fragrance through its cinematography and the sounds. Of course, bringing out a film based on smells, odours, and scents had almost been an innate impossibility, as cinema had been completely associated with the eyes and ears. How could possibly a filmmaker let his audience smell the beauty and horror of such story? Or how could possibly a writer, since this was based by the novel written by Patrick Suskind of the same title, bring out the olfactory senses by writing it through words? How could we able to smell it all?

That's the phenomenon of this film, and Tom Twyker, the director, had indeed succeed in his ultimate, masterpiece toil. He brilliantly used the splendour of cinematography, which was for the eyes, the thrill of the musical score, for the ears, and the spirit of the story, to let us feel its emotions which represents for the touch. We may not taste it as it is not for the tongue to meddle with, but surely, Perfume lets us smell everything: the ambition, the talent, the beauty, the obsession, the seduction, the murder and the horror. It's a wonderfully crafted film, and I sat watching this, it always runs in my mind what it feels like reading the novel itself.

It's a creepy story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who was abandoned by her mother in a very filthy, mucky and pungent market streets of ancient Paris, and later grows up to discover that he has an extraordinary gift unlike any other mundane humans. He has a great sense of smell more powerful than the common ones that he could differentiate the scent of grasses from the flowers, lake water from the stones, wood from the fields and God knows what else. Maybe it was because that he was born right in the market floor, in the spot, where he was ultimately exposed to foul air for his first gasp of oxygen. And yet, he grows up smelling everything around him, learning from his environment. Then he became a perfumist apprentice in Paris to Master Baldini, played brilliantly by Dustin Hoffman, and he showed uncompared talent, concocting perfect formula of perfumes. But his ambition runs deeper, he wanted to capture all scents of the world: the copper, the stones, the silver, the flowers, the rose, and all else that matters. But there was one scent he couldn't capture: beauty. With this, he became a gruesome murderer, killing young virgins and stores their essences to small bottles. This was his obsessions, and he would kill anyone who would come across his pursuit, as what he learned from Baldini, that capturing the perfect scent was like doing 12 notes and finally condensing the final and 13th scent to fulfill the masterpiece. It a fantastic turn or Ben Whishaw, playing Grenouille, because there's so much depth in his character, putting both mystery and fascination to it. We may not know what's his sole purpose why he's doing it, Grenouille, but we can completely understand that it's our ambitions that makes us greedy sometimes.

It's in Tom Twyker that made this film a work of a genius, and also a great kudos to Patrick Suskind. The writer had formulated a very original and fresh story and the director had crafted also an original, haunting and almost perfect magnum opus. The story actually evolved from both the protagonist and antagonist in one man, and it's a story about evil in its pure, raw form, just like what cinema did to Hannibal Lecter. Grenouille was just a man but his obsession for his ambitions drove him into a madman for the scent, his pursuit for beauty and lasting perfection. He becomes both the angel and the devil here; angel because at the last scenes, he made all the denizens fall to their knees and relish the scent in their noses - he made heaven beknownst to the people.

Perfume is a very interesting film, one that glues you right at your seat, and wanting it not to finish. It's a very, and I mean very, dark film with complex brooding issues. Even the nude scenes near the end was very amazingly done, too crowded yes, but not showing too much, just the right graphics for the audience. It might actually make Stanley Kubrick proud. It has top-notch direction, excellent musical scores, and noteworthy performances. There are a lot of memorable and creepy scenes, and since it's a very dark film, it makes audience feel both horror and intrigue towards it. It's absolutely unforgettable and undeniably one of the year's best gems of cinema that could transcend through the ages.

Watch it, and get seduced by its dark beauty. It's probably the most original film this year.

Rating: A+