Perfume: The Story of a Murderer The Dead Girl

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THE SLATE > REVIEWS
sophisticated notion handled
deftly in what might be the
first film of the 2ist century to
ponder the end of humanity
as it is most likely to occur:
slowly, with lots of time to
think about it. —Tim Cogshell
Perfume:
The Story of
a Murderer
A rich and intoxicating scent
Distributor: Paramount
Cast: Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman,
Alan Rickman and Rachel Hurd-Wood
Director: Tom Tykwer
Screenwriters: Andrew Birkin & Bernd
Eichinger & Tom Tykwer
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Genre: Drama
Rating: R for aberrant behavior involving nudity, violence, sexuality and
disturbing images
Running time: 147 min.
Release date: December 27 ltd
In Tom Tykwer's adaptation
of German novelist Patrick
Suskind's Das Parjum, gangly
actor Ben Whishaw stars as
the freakish Jean-Baptiste
Grenouille, a misbegotten orphan who grows up amid the
squalor of pre-Revolutionary
Paris both blessed and cursed
with olfactory abilities far
beyond those of mere mortals.
The world others perceive and
understand primarily through
sight and sound Grenouille
perceives through smell. He
is tormented, however, by his
inability to preserve those
smells, an obsession that
eventually leads him, fatefully, into the employ of fading
Parisian perfumer Giuseppe
Baldini (Dustin Hoffman).
The match is magic—Grenouille's ability to instantly
unravel the recipes of Baldini's competitors and further
improve upon their chemistry
sends Baldini soaring once
again to the top of his trade.
In exchange, Baldini teaches
Grenouille the art of making perfume. But Baldini's
methods are limited and
cannot do what Grenouille
is determined to do, namely
capture and preserve the
scent of individuals. Already
this obsession has led him
to accidentally kill a young
woman, and, as seeks more
refined techniques, his inward
destination will take him irreversibly toward darkness.
Perfume is an undeniably
fascinating adventure, by
turns disturbing and enthralling with its pitch-perfect
recreation of a world beset by
piety and debauchery, boundless beauty and incomprehensible squalor. Nowhere,
however, is the evocation of
those contrasts stronger than
in Whishaw's captivating
performance. Though he is
hardly the grotesque depicted
in the book, his almost golemlike ability to manipulate
audience sentiment, toying
with and challenging their
dual capacities for empathy
and revulsion, is a thing of
thespian wonder. And, though
Whishaw's supporting players—particularly the lovably
miscast Hoffman—never
quite seem to be on the same
page or even in the same movie, Tykwer's overall realization is so forcefully evocative
that the flaws seem to disappear like fading blemishes on
a magnificent tapestry.
There is Oscar-caliber
work at almost all levels here,
beginning with the exceptional adaptation by Tykwer,
producer Bernd Eichinger
and French director Andrew
Birkin. Also of note is Frank
Griebe's haunting, luminous
cinematography, aided and
abetted by the equally fine
work of editor Alexander
Berner, production designer
Uli Hanisch, costume designer
Pierre-Yves Gayraud and Tykwer's co- composers Reinhold
Heil and Johnny Klimek.
Thematically, the movie
can't really capture the
density of ideas manifest in
the novel, but it does preserve
the book's essence, visualized
with such uncommon flair
and flourish that it becomes,
in many ways, an equally precious achievement all on its
own. —Wade Major
The Dead Girl
What hath Crash wrought?
Distributor: First Look
Cast: Rose Byrne, Toni Collette,
Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Beth Hurt,
Piper Laurie, Brittany Murphy and
Giovanni Ribisi
Director/Screenwriter: Karen Moncrieff
Producers: Eric Karten, Gary Lucchesi,
Tom Rosenberg, Kevin Turen, Henry
Winterstern and Richard S. Wright
Genre: Drama
Rating: R for language, grisly images
and sexuality/nudity
Running time: 93 min.
Release date: December 29 NY/LA
The success of Crash has
resulted in actors being more
willing to accept small parts
in ensemble films. A less
positive consequence is that
filmmakers seem more willing to believe any topic can be
handled in a similar manner.
Talented performers fill
out the pungent characters in
The Dead Girl. Though nicely
executed from a technical
standpoint, the subject of
victimized womanhood
receives extreme treatment.
Crash struck a nerve because
it offered a positive slant on
racism by allowing for the
possibility of change and
forgiveness. But no potential
for redemption materializes
in the thoroughly depressing
world created by Karen Moncrieff. Many found Crash's
silver lining artificial, and
the uncompromisingly bleak
vision itself isn't the drawback here. Rather, it feels too
schematic. All the women
have been pushed to the edge
and are facilitators or victims
of violence. They can choose
to become angry, uptight
shrews or wayward whores.
Moncrieff leaves little room
for more nuanced reactions.
Set in greater Los Angeles,
the movie is divided into
five taut segments about
vulnerable women linked to
a murder victim. In the first,
Toni Collette plays a masochistic caregiver verbally abused
by her invalid mother (Piper
Laurie); after finding the titular body, she hooks up with
a grocery clerk (Giovanni
Ribisi) obsessed with serial
killers. Rose Byrne is outstanding as the depressed forensics
student who preps the body
for an autopsy and whose sister has been missing for years.
An unrecognizable Mary Beth
Hurt devastates as the killer's
spouse, and Marcia Gay
Harden oozes naive, middleAmerica mother-love in the
least affecting part. Finally,
the victim is energetically
portrayed by Brittany Murphy.
Like Moncrief's earlier Blue
Carbefore it, The Dead Girl
is about manipulation, yet
not—like Crash—as susceptible to the charge of trying
to manipulate the audience.
—John P. McCarthy
The Flying
Scotsman
Inspirational story remains
in Chariots' shadow
Distributor: MGM
Cast: Jonny Lee Miller, Billy Boyd and
Laura Fraser
Director: Douglas Mackinnon
Screenwriters: John Brown, Simon
Rose and Declan Hughes
Producers: Sara Giles, Peter Gallagher
and Peter Broughan
Genre: Sports drama
Rating: Not yet rated
Running time: 103 min.
Release date: December 29 ltd
Think Chariots of Fire on
bikes, and you'll have some
approximation of The Flying
Scotsman, the true story of
Graeme Obree, a Scottish
amateur cyclist who in 1994
broke the World Hour Record
on a machine he built at
home, using parts from an old
BMX and a discarded washing
machine. Obree (Jonny Lee
Miller) emerges as an unlikely
and reluctant sporting hero
who also has to cope with
clinical depression even when
he is being acclaimed and feted in victory. Despite the dark
side, which impinges on his
wife (Laura Fraser) and family
as well as his best friend and
loyal trainer (Billy Boyd), the
film imparts a feel-good glow
about the triumph of the
underdog in adversity. And
the training scenes against
scenic backdrops should
please the tourist authority
Visit Scotland.
Told in workmanlike manner by Douglas Mackinnon,
best known for British TV
network dramas, the narrative is serviceable without
allowing the film to soar to
the heights of Chariots, Hugh
Hudson's landmark Scottish
sporting saga.
The cycle sequences in a
velodrome in Hamburg, for
instance, lack nail-biting
tension. This is a pity, because
the potential in Obree's story
is truly remarkable, with lashings of ingenuity, determination and guts. —Richard Mowe
i Freudian novice Leon (Alex
Brendemuhl), engages her
; brother-in-law Salvador (Luis
; Tosar), also a psychiatrist, to
i help find her husband, who
; mysteriously disappears
: after a highly intriguing
; opening sequence. Damsel; in-distress Alma—who, even
; nine months pregnant, is too
i alluring to refuse—cajoles
; Salvador into taking up the
: search, during which it is in
I fact her Holmesian analytical
: skills that put them on the
: trail of Leon, not to mention
: a plethora of family secrets
i involving her analyst father,
i housekeeper, sister and a
Unconscious
I number of women whom
Funny and romantic Spanish i Leon treated for what was
import worth a second look
: commonly called hysteria. It's
Distributor: Regent
all highly Freudian, indeed.
Cast: Leonor Watling, Luis Tosar and
:
Cultural taboos from
Alex Brendemuhl
i patricide to incest are at play,
Director: Joaquin Oristrell
and Spanish director Joaquin
Screenwriters: Dominic Harari, Joaquin
i Oristrell's Unconscious is an abOristrell and Teresa Pelegri
Producers: Mariela Besuievski, Marta
i solutely delightful movie that
Esteban and Gerardo Herrero
: is—despite those ostensibly
Genre: Romantic comedy/mystery;
; distressing subjects— most
Spanish-language, subtitled
Rating: R for sexual content, including I of all funny, wonderfully
dialogue, and some drug material
: romantic and sexy. The film
Running time: 108 min.
: is a combination of styles and
Release date: December 29 SF, uni modes, ranging from episodic
dated exp NY/LA, undated exp wide
: vignettes to magical realism,
Set in 1913 Barcelona, during : with touches of thriller and
the rise of Freud and the new ; mystery, of comedy and, of
science of psychoanalysis,
i course, romance. Even with
Alma (Leonor Watling),
I the burden of subtitles in a
the very pregnant wife of
: film where the repartee comes
fast and sharp, the visuals are
sumptuous and the actors
lovely. Unconscious is worth
the effort to divide your
senses and take in every aspect. If necessary, see it twice:
Read it the first time, watch it
the second. —Tim Cogshell
Behind the
Mask: The Rise
of Leslie Vernon
Shallow postmodern horror
flick rescued by game perfs
Distributor: Anchor Bay
Cast: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals,
Robert Englund and Scott Wilson
Director/Producer: Scott Glosserman
Screenwriters: Scott Glosserman and
David J. Stieve
Genre: Thriller
Rating: Unrated
Running time: 92 min.
Release date: January 5 ltd
If Wes Craven's Scream
started the trend of the postmodern slasher flick, Scott
Glosserman's debut feature
Behind the Mask: The Rise of
Leslie Vernon may take it to its
logical conclusion. Glosserman and his co-writer David
J. Stieve cobble together all
the major tropes—from the
faux-documentary technique
of The Blair Witch Project to
the familiar set pieces and
archetypes found in every
post-Texas Chainsaw Massacre
serial killer franchise—for
this meta-slasher movie.
Behind the Mask follows
Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel),
an aspiring serial killer ready
to claim his place alongside
Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger. Enter
Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals), a gung-ho student filmmaker, who, with Vernon's
enthusiastic consent, starts
to document the hatching of
Vernon's elaborate plans for
terrorizing his idyllic town of
Glen Echo. Much of what follows is laid out as a mock-doc
profile of Vernon as he points