The Scent of Vice and Virtue

A specific analysis of Tom Tykwer’s new film, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

While the theater filled with the laughter that often erupts when an audience is not sure how to react to a particular scene, I remained quiet, filling with excitement from a series of revelations that had suddenly come together. Amidst the laughter I witnessed one of my favorite paintings coming alive on the screen, Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Before my eyes was an R-rated version of the famous triptych’s lust-filled center panel. Every moment became increasingly painterly and left me reaching at more deep meaning than I had sensed before. Up until this moment I was watching a film about a gifted, perhaps autistic, murderer with a knack for winning over his theater audience. After this scene, however, the film was about all of the characters and their cumulative embodiment of vice and virtue.



Bosch’s well-known paintings usually revolve around the seven deadly sins: luxuria (lust), gula (gluttony), avaritia (greed), acedia (sloth), ira (wrath), invidia (envy), and superbia (pride). His depiction of mankind’s history with these vices was most often monstrous and chaotic. Unlike Bosch, however, Perfume, does not outright mention sin, only eludes to flaws and consequences generated by all of the character’s actions. This subtlety provides an interesting way of presenting these themes to the audience. Vice and virtue are not typically as cut and dry as films often make them out to be. Perfume requires the audience to look deep to decide which is which. Good and evil skirt along a vague line where either could be equally revered or despised. The main strength of this film is allowing the audience the opportunity to decide their own conclusion without the comfort of knowing what is morally correct.

According to Catholic scripture, the seven sins are opposed by the seven contrary virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, forgiveness, kindness and humility. If Perfume is reflective of reality, those virtues are breed from sin, polar opposites made apparent by mutual existence. For example, where greed reigns, charity is apparent if only by the horror of its absence. My personal reflections have allowed me to find examples of these interactions through the film that have truly shaped its interest for me.

Sloth: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the gifted murderer, was born of Sloth. Discarded by his mother almost before he left her womb, he was consistently threatened by those who would rather see him dead than deal with his existence. The sloth of others would have easily killed Grenouille, if not for his extraordinary diligence to survive and eventually his unstoppable ambitions to capture scent. Sloth appears again as Grenouille is on the verge of capture, but suddenly the town gives up the search because their apparent sloth outweighs the diligence of one citizen’s cries. Sloth breeds diligence, but it is interesting to realize that villains often are far more diligent than anyone else.

Greed: The only sin mentioned outright is greed. The narrator refers to Grenouille as greedy to posses every scent. He was not driven by money or material wealth. Grenouille was a collector obsessed with the need to collect scent. Greed also appears in Giuseppe Baldini, a master perfumer played by Dustin Hoffman. He wishes to earn back his wealth by taking in Grenouille to help him design perfumes under his name. The two characters have a mucky form of charity for each other that I would probably rather coin “mutually beneficial greediness.”

Pride: This is the real sin of Hoffman’s character. The master perfumer is vain and will not allow the idea that he has lost his creative nose. The humble Grenouille appears in his life, turning out to be more vain than he realizes. The relationship truly leaves the master perfumer humbled by his supernaturally talented student. Though Giuseppe is allowed the chance to flaunt his great nose to the public more than before.

Lust: Skirting close to greed often enough, Grenouille lusts after scent. Driven by the smell of beautiful women, he appears to only be lusting after their scent. He is a sexual predator of scent, unstoppable once he decides to have a smell. The women that embody the most powerful scents for Grenouille are those that are most chaste, the contrary virtue to lust. It appears that lust wins the battle in this film, especially when the center panel of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is reenacted.

Gluttony: Giving in to greed and lust is dangerous to some extent, but it was Grenouille’s gluttony that was shocking. He would stop at nothing to satisfy his primal urges, completely addicted to the sensations. Temperance does come eventually, ending the film. Blinded by his gluttony, Grenouille realizes that he captured his supposed desires only to realize he cannot really have what he needs to be happy. Temperance, in this case, is relatively close to giving up a dream.

Envy: The least addressed sin in this film. Grenouille, despite his hard life, does not appear to envy anyone. That is, until the end when he looks over the nude bodies and realizes his loneliness. The crowd, surprisingly envies him, but this is more of a hypnotic envy, beyond anyone’s control. Envy, in the case of this film, leads to kindness and respect.

Wrath: An expected sin when a murderer is involved. The murderer himself is almost without this sin. It is the other six sins that drive him. The father of the last murder is the epitome of wrath in this film, but even he is swayed to forgiveness under the pressure of some supernatural and hypnotic force of scent. This breaks the father, watching everyone envy the killer and eventually begging his forgiveness for the murder of his only daughter.

With vice and virtue so intermingled and protagonists and antagonists sharing them all, it is hard to define this movie's message with definite answers of morality. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer exists outside the usually clear-cut storyline of mainstream cinema, allowing emotional responses that, like in genuine life, are unsure. Bosch Would have been proud to see such intermingling of vices and virtues, muddying the waters of morality with a monstrous story of a most unusual nature.