Perfume The Story Of A Murderer In Hindi Dubbed
Karly Magner
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 period psychological thriller film directed by Tom Tykwer, who cowrote the screenplay with Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Patrick Sskind. The film stars Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood and Dustin Hoffman. Set in 18th-century France, the film tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw), an olfactory genius, and his homicidal quest for the perfect scent.
A co-production of Germany, France, Spain and the United States, Perfume was released September 14, 2006, in Germany by Constantin Film, December 26, 2006, in the United Kingdom by Path Distribution, and December 27, 2006, in the United States by Paramount Pictures. It grossed more than $135 million worldwide, of which more than $53 million was made in Germany. Critics gave the film mixed reviews. The visual style and performances of Rickman and Whishaw were predominantly praised, while the unevenness of the screenplay and casting of Hoffman were criticized.
The film begins with the sentencing of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a notorious murderer. The story of his life is told in flashback. He is seen born and abandoned in a French fish market by his mother, who is almost immediately hanged. Raised in an orphanage, Grenouille grows into a strangely detached boy with a superhuman sense of smell. After growing to maturity as a tanner's apprentice, he makes his first delivery to Paris, where he revels in all the new scents. He is particularly enchanted by a redheaded girl selling yellow plums, following her and attempting to sniff her, but he startles her with his behavior. To prevent her from crying out, he covers her mouth and unintentionally suffocates her. After realizing she is dead, he strips her naked and smells her all over, becoming distraught when her scent fades. Afterward, he is haunted by the desire to recreate her aroma.
When making a delivery to a perfume shop, Grenouille amazes the Italian owner, Giuseppe Baldini, with his ability to create fragrances. He revitalizes the perfumer's career with new formulas, demanding only that Baldini teach him how to preserve scents. Baldini explains that all perfumes are harmonies of twelve scents, and may contain a theoretical thirteenth scent. Grenouille is saddened to learn that Baldini's method of distillation will not capture the scents of all objects (or rather, people). Baldini informs Grenouille of another method in Grasse, and provides him the journeyman papers in exchange for 100 new perfume formulas. Immediately after Grenouille departs, however, Baldini dies when his shaky apartment building collapses with him in it. En route to Grasse, Grenouille decides to exile himself from society, taking refuge in a cave. During this time, he discovers that he himself lacks any personal scent, and he believes this is why he is perceived as strange or disturbing by others. Deciding to continue his quest, he leaves his cave.
On arrival in Grasse, he catches the scent of Laure Richis, the redheaded daughter of the wealthy Antoine Richis, and decides that she will be his "thirteenth scent", the linchpin of his perfume. He finds a job and learns the method of enfleurage. He starts experimenting by first killing a young woman and attempting to extract her scent using hot enfleurage, which fails. He attempts cold enfleurage on a prostitute he murders, and successfully preserves her scent. Having perfected his method, he embarks on a killing spree, targeting young women and capturing their scents. He dumps their naked corpses around the city, creating panic. After preserving the first twelve scents, he plans his attack on Laure. Worried about his daughter's safety, Richis flees the city with her, but Grenouille tracks her scent to a seaside inn and murders her while Richis is asleep.
Soldiers capture Grenouille moments after he finishes preparing his perfume. On the day of his execution, he applies the perfume on himself. The executioner and the crowd are speechless at the intoxicating scent; they declare Grenouille innocent before falling into a massive orgy. Richis approaches him with his sword, but is overwhelmed by the scent and embraces Grenouille as his son. Walking out of Grasse unscathed, Grenouille has enough perfume to rule the world, but has discovered that it cannot help him to love nor be loved like a normal person. Disenchanted by his aimless quest, he returns to the Parisian fish market where he was born and pours the remaining perfume over his head. Overwhelmed by the scent, the nearby crowd devours him. The next morning, all that is left are his clothes and the perfume bottle, out of which one final drop falls.
Eichinger and screenwriter Andrew Birkin began to write a draft script.[5] Eichinger says that their biggest problem was a narrative one. "The main character doesn't express himself. A novelist can use narrative to compensate for this; that's not possible in film. An audience can usually only get a feeling for a character if the character speaks," said Eichinger. "With material like this it is especially important for a director to get involved in the script."[5] Eichinger met with a number of directors, but felt that only Tom Tykwer was really in tune with the material.[6] In 2003, Tykwer was invited to join Eichinger and Birkin in adapting the novel.[6] The screenplay went through more than 20 revisions to get to the final shooting script.[10] The three writers worked hard to create a faithful adaptation that captured the atmosphere and climate of the novel, yet, at the same time, have a specific and individual perspective, in terms of the story and the main character.[11]
Filming was originally planned to begin in the third quarter of 2004, but the filmmakers had trouble finding the right actor to play the protagonist, Grenouille.[23] The search to find an actor to play Grenouille took nearly a year.[10] On casting agent Michelle Guish's advice, Tykwer went to see Ben Whishaw perform as Hamlet in Trevor Nunn's production of the play. Tykwer immediately felt that he had found the actor for the role.[5] An audition followed that convinced Eichinger of Whishaw's potential.[5] Eichinger described Whishaw as embodying both "the innocent angel and the murderer".[5] Regarding his search to find an actor, Tykwer said, "It only really seemed plausible to choose someone for this role who was completely unknown. You could also say a 'nobody' who is to become a 'somebody' - because that's what the story is about too."[5]
When casting the role of Baldini, the washed-up perfumer who teaches Grenouille how to capture smells and create perfume, Tykwer immediately thought of Dustin Hoffman. "When I took on this project I knew straight away that there was no one who could play Baldini better," said Tykwer.[5] Hoffman had wanted to work with Tykwer since he saw Run Lola Run, and Tykwer had always wanted to get Hoffman for a part.[5] Hoffman and Whishaw had a week of rehearsal and a crash course in perfume-making prior to the start of principal photography. The scenes between the two actors were shot in sequence, allowing them to follow the natural progression of their characters' relationship.[5]
Alan Rickman was Tykwer's first choice to play Richis, and the role was not offered to anyone else.[5] Tykwer and Eichinger looked through hundreds of audition tapes to find the right actress for the role of Richis's daughter Laure. Tykwer believed he had found the right actress on a tape with 15 actresses, but couldn't remember exactly which was the one he liked. Eichinger looked through the tape and found what he thought was a suitable person. It turned out that both men had chosen the same actress, Rachel Hurd-Wood. Tykwer went to London to personally cast her. A new tape was recorded, and she was given the role.[5] A suitable actress could not be found in England nor the United States for the role of the plum girl, so Tykwer decided to look at actresses in Germany. Karoline Herfurth, who had twice worked with Tykwer, was asked to do a screen test with Whishaw, in costume. Herfurth proved herself to Tykwer, and her role was expanded.[5]
A total of 5,200 extras were used for the film, sometimes with nearly a thousand at once. The orgy scene at the film's climax required 750 extras. Fifty key players from the dance theater group La Fura dels Baus and 100 relatively experienced talents formed the core of the crowd. The remaining 600 extras were arranged around this group of 150 performers.[5]
Tykwer described the film as having "a distinctly dark aesthetic" due to both the lack of adequate lighting during the film's time period and the nature of its storyline.[5] The filmmakers took inspiration from painters who specialized in darkness with few sources of light, including Caravaggio, Joseph Wright of Derby and Rembrandt.[5] The film begins with a cool, monochromatic color palette, and as Grenouille discovers more scents, the palette warms and opens up. For the scenes in which Grenouille is in Paris for the first time, the filmmakers subtly added more powerful colors in the sets, costumes, props and lighting to represent Grenouille's experience of the new smells.[24]
One of the main challenges of making the film was to convey the smells and the world of scents that Grenouille experiences. Tykwer said that, to him, Perfume "was much more a film about the importance of smell in our life than a film that tries to be smelly".[6] The filmmakers strived to convey smell visually without the use of colors or special effects,[5] Griebe said. "People see the fish market full of raw, bloody fish, and they know it stinks; they see a field of lavender and know it smells wonderful. We show Grenouille taking in smells by cupping his nose, and by doing close shots of his nose, and that's it!"[24]
"Sskind's gift is in his ability to let his readers, through language, experience Grenouille's world, which is revealed solely through his sense of smell. We have done the same with a different language, one composed of sound, music, dialogue and, of course, image."
b37509886e