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.
