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Perfume


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I can hardly keep up with the dozens of new films coming out at the end of the year here, I saw Perfume late last night after Children of Men. I'm not too familiar with Griebe & Tykwer's work except for Run Lola Run which is one of my favorite all-time films so I was really excited to see this.

 

I wasn't disappointed, the slummy period cinematography and surreal story was right up my alley. I hadn't read the novel, it seems the book has a legion of fans. I probably wouldn't recommend the film though because it does get rather silly in parts, especially the end which kind of plays like the raining frogs in Magnolia, kind of hard to buy it at first sitting. But for the most part I was loving every frame.

 

I especially like the use of darkness which kind of reminded me of The Libertine but not nearly as grainy. There's no way this would have played as well if filmed in HD. The shot used in the advert at the top of the forum went from almost complete darkness to his face slowly being revealed, this HD capture from the trailer doesn't do it justice (the movie itself is 2.35:1 btw):

 

th_perfume-01.jpg

 

The makeup and production design was top notch which really helped the cinematography. I think Tykwer's direction is slightly off but not distractingly so, but his camera movement and compositions were compelling and not overly flashy. I think he could have put more heart into the novel adaptation instead of a literal lift from the book that plays well intellectually but lacks emotion. But the surreal and bizzarness of it all I think makes it great.

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I really wanted to see it before, and now I want to see it even more. Tykwer is one of those directors that tends to have fairly long periods of time go by between films, and to me that's great because you get the impression that he's pretty selective. His films are great, and it's good to know he has another good one out now.

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I didn't like the book at all and I went to see the film just because I thought that it would be impossible to translate it to images. But Tykwer proves how wrong I was. He uses all the cinematic language at his hand to describe with images what Patrick Süskind described with words (which wasn't an easy task, either) and definetly succeds. And though the film is long and bit dense at times, I found it much more enjoyable than it's literary counterpart.

 

The cinematography itself is OK, but everyframe looks "lit" and nice and I would have preffered a more realistic approach to the period and its light sources. I believe it was shot with the new Master Primes and it looks very sharp (except for the zoom shots, which are a bit softer), but thanks to the D.I. the skin tones were really unnatural.

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I liked the lighting a lot. In fact, I think it was beautifully shot all around. And the story had me going for a while aside from some obnoxiously whimsical elements that kept reoccurring. But then it really went off the rails. What made me sad about it was that I kept on seeing missed opportunities?places where Tykwer could have given it some amount of cohesiveness, and made it into a really interesting parable about artistic obsession. Instead, it seemed that they conceived this elaborate and well thought out tale, and then chose the ending randomly, with only minimal attention paid to what it said about the rest of the film. As if three quarters of the way through, he lost all focus and veered off randomly into the surreal. Fellini could move back and forth between realism and surrealism, but when he did it was motivated by elements of the story or the themes of the film. Tykwer, on gets the feeling, either lost his grip or just decided to mess with the audience a bit before the whole construction came crashing down.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I saw the film the other night without knowing who directed it or what it was about.

 

I was especially impressed with the use of darkness, like Jason mentioned. Many of the scenes where the main character is lurking in the darkness he is just barely visible, even his eyes. I'm not sure how much was done in camera vs. DI but it worked quite well.

 

I liked the lighting choices. The basement scene where he is learning about Perfume-making it is lit by "candle light." But Griebe doesn't go for the flickerboxes/dimmers. He matches the color temp. and keeps it clean. I think that it makes it feel a little modern, modern-candles? It's not the cave scene in LOTR.

 

Also on several of the EXT NIGHT scenes the "moonlight" is white while the candlelight is only 1/4-1/2 CTO. I really like that, vs. the 1/2 CTB for moonlight and white for tungsten.

 

I also liked the shots of the first encounter with the redhead. There were some interesting over the shoulder shots (POV?) of her walking. The red hair also reminds me of the Village.

 

Cheers,

 

Matt

 

Also I like set photos so here you go.

 

PF02.jpg

 

1805488.jpg

Edited by Matt Workman
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  • 3 months later...
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Finally saw this on DVD. What a gorgeous film!

 

This is exactly my style of cinematography and the way I'd like to light. I love how Driebe doesn't smother his subjects in cheap backlight and rims on people - he keeps everything very single source on faces, normally from the side or three quarter on. He also doesn't shy away from soft front light when he needs to, something most avoid. His underexposures are also completely spot on - the film is dark as hell, but it never feels grotty or gets lost. Griebe also seems to have a penchant for dimmed down tungsten sources, something I also love. And when I saw in one of the behind-the-scenes shots that he used Rifa-lights, I knew I had my man.. :P

 

Movie isn't perfect, but the cinematography sure is.

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  • 2 months later...
Finally saw this on DVD. What a gorgeous film!

 

This is exactly my style of cinematography and the way I'd like to light. I love how Driebe doesn't smother his subjects in cheap backlight and rims on people - he keeps everything very single source on faces, normally from the side or three quarter on. He also doesn't shy away from soft front light when he needs to, something most avoid. His underexposures are also completely spot on - the film is dark as hell, but it never feels grotty or gets lost. Griebe also seems to have a penchant for dimmed down tungsten sources, something I also love. And when I saw in one of the behind-the-scenes shots that he used Rifa-lights, I knew I had my man.. :P

 

Movie isn't perfect, but the cinematography sure is.

 

I also loved the cinematography in this movie, and would love to have a similar style. That being said, I would also love to be able to have a similar style to Beebe (memoirs of a geisha to be completely spot on). Hwo do you think these to would blend?

 

(yes, i am an amateur, so excuse me for any lack of info or any "newbie" qualities i possess :rolleyes: "

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