Perfume film released after 15 year rights battle

BERLIN—A fifteen-year struggle for the film rights to Patrick Sueskind's top-selling novel "Perfume" culminates this week in the premiere of the grisly 18th century murder story, featuring Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.
The tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille and his murderous pursuit of the perfect fragrance has made "Perfume" the world's best-selling German novel since "All Quiet on the Western Front" written by Erich Maria Remarque in the 1920s.
Even after the sale of 15 million books Sueskind, known in his German homeland as a recluse, refused to sell the rights.
Rumor has it the author had his eye on film maker Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, but eventually he sold them to his friend Bernd Eichinger, also Germany's best known producer.
Eichinger -- whose credits include "The Name of the Rose" and "Downfall," the acclaimed portrayal of Adolf Hitler's last days -- says he knew as soon as he read the book after it came out in 1985 that he had to film it but Sueskind would not bite.
"At last, in 2000 -- almost 15 years later -- I finally got the impression he would talk about it," says Eichinger.
"I think Patrick (Sueskind) will see the film at some point -- he will probably put on a false beard and a wig so no one recognizes him, but I would like that, it's the best thing that can happen," Eichinger told Reuters.
He declines to say how much he paid, but the 50 million euros ($64 million) budget makes it the most expensive German film ever made.
After decades of lagging French cinema, German film buffs hope "Perfume," whose premiere is in Munich on Thursday, will outstrip recent successes "Downfall," "Good Bye Lenin" and "Run Lola Run" and firmly establish German work in the film world.
The dark story tells of Grenouille, an amoral loner born in 1738 in a Paris fish market with a remarkable sense of smell.
He becomes a perfume maker -- Dustin Hoffman is his mentor -- and develops an obsession with creating the perfect scent.
To this end Grenouille, played by relatively unknown 26-year-old Ben Whishaw, murders pretty girls for their smell. The daughter of a merchant, played by Alan Rickman, is his most desired victim.
"The biggest challenge was to depict a hero who sets out to fulfill his goal in a calculated way but who keeps the sympathy of the audience," director Tom Tykwer told Reuters, comparing the main character to Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs."
The climax comes when Grenouille sends hundreds of thousands of people who have come to witness his execution into a trance with his perfume, a scene some critics say has overtones of a Nazi rally.
"That was the most difficult scene," said Tykwer, who also directed "Run Lola Run."
"How do you convincingly show how hundreds of thousands of people who hate this man and want him to be executed to suddenly change their mind?"
The film goes on wide release on September 14 -- with no scented scratchcard.—Agencies