What the Hell Did I Just See?

Most movies progress in a linear path from point A to point B. This is the norm; it's expected, it's what audiences are familiar with, it's what they want (or so the corporate drones tell us). But once in a while, some movies come along that throw us a curveball, and while some may scratch their heads and ask, "What the hell did I just see?", others like me welcome these aberrations because they're so far removed from convention it almost automatically makes them interesting. I say almost, because sometimes these experiments fail to engage on any level, and if so, then they've failed.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer actually follows the straight and narrow path for a good portion of it. In this aspect, it is unexceptional and rote, as it follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan gifted with an exceptional sense of smell through his horrible childhood and subsequent adult life, where he becomes obsessed with the smell of women and is consumed with the urge to bottle their essence. Of course, he has to kill them in the process - it's hardly a secret, what with the title proclaiming it to the world.

Frankly, I was rather bored with this portion of the movie, because apart from a few nice attempts at expressing his acute sense of smell visually, there was nothing striking about it. I was hoping for more from director Tom Tykwer, because nice visuals coming from him are a given. Possibly the only thing that stuck in my mind from the first and second act, but for all the wrong reasons, was Dustin Hoffman's jarring performance as an Italian perfumer that takes the young Grenouille under his wing as an apprentice. For some reason, he chose to give a comedic performance that was simply unfunny, and his lame attempts at humor (and a bad Italian accent) stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise sombre movie.

Speaking of accents, does anyone know why a movie that's set in France, helmed by a German director, has everyone speaking British English (apart from Hoffman)? No? Neither do I.

I was about to dismiss Perfume as simply another over-hyped, mediocre movie when the third act rolled along. And every previous conception I had about it was blown to the winds as I stared at the screen, jaw open in surprise.

I really don't want to give anything away, so suffice to say that the final scenes are so audacious that they transcended all expectations I had; they were so out-of-the-world bizarre, yet were so completely fitting, that days after the movie, I still couldn't stop thinking about it. I haven't read the novel it's based on, so I have no basis for comparison, and don't know if this was what was originally written or if Tykwer put his own stamp on it, but damn, it's a great blast of cinema.

46 億年の恋 (Big Bang Love, Juvenile A), on the other hand, was bizarre from the get-go. A bad-ass youth is strangled while in a penitentiary, but how could he have been killed if he was more likely to kill his would-be killer before the latter even got a punch in? So who did kill him - was it his rumored lover and fellow prisoner, the warden, or everyone in the damn place? Everyone has a motive, but the truth is far simpler.

Okay, so the premise isn't so bizarre, but the presentation sure is. It starts with a monologue read from a book, then segues into a dance sequence intercut with an ominous-looking old man instructing a young boy to go through a rite of passage (which basically getting it on with a strapping young man). And then some of it's like Dogville, with its Brechtian bare stage and areas demarcated with white lines, and some of it's more conventional. Then there's the direct address, and text onscreen, and a pyramid right outside the penitentiary, as well as a space shuttle, for some reason. The performances are intentionally stilted, you never figure out why some directorial choices were made, it's all quite incomprehensible and makes you go, "What the fuck?", but there's one very important plus point - it's never boring.

It all looks like Takashi Miike shot it when he was high on illegal substances, but that's part of his appeal for me. He might not have the most original plots - in fact, the storyline for this one is quite straightforward for those who can see past all the mumbo-jumbo he throws in the way - but he'll always do something completely original and whack with it (and he does more of that here than in any of his other movies), and I'd rather see something interesting but not easily decipherable than a run-of-the-mill cookie-cutter product any day. And hey, it's a departure from his usual horror flicks, and if he's brave enough to try something new with his 70th film, that's something to be embraced.