I’ve yet to see Tom Tykwer’s film of Patrick Süskind’s novel, Perfume—The Story of a Murderer, and remain reluctant to do so; it’s a rule in cinema that good books make bad films and vice versa. Perfume is a good book and a favourite of mine which makes the prospect of film adaptation even more worrying. (As an aside, Tykwer dispels the persistent rumour that Stanley Kubrick dismissed Perfume as an unfilmable novel.)
Reservations apart, I’ve been listening to the tremendous soundtrack all week after a recommendation from a friend (hi Philip!). The music is credited to Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and the director, and features the near unprecedented involvement of conductor Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, an orchestra that rarely stoops to the level of the film soundtrack. This prompted speculation about the distinct challenge Süskind’s book presents to a designer: how best to represent the entwined strands of Grenouille’s career as a perfumier and a murderer of young women?