Up-and-coming British thesp Ben Whishaw does some impressive nostril flaring for Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer, but it's Dustin Hoffman who "steals the show" as a powder-wigged perfumier. Conversely, German director Tom Twyker got very mixed reviews for a detached rendering of the Patrick Süskind best-seller. But on its release the film disappeared faster than a fart in the wind.

Making Scents

Süskind was among those who had deep reservations about translating the book to film. In an hour-long Making Of documentary, producer Bernd Eichinger reveals that he refused to sell the rights for a long time. Obviously he changed his mind, but then Eichinger butted heads with screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who also appears to talk about the challenges he faced in conveying smells for the screen. Twyker later tackles the problem of recreating the filthy environs of 18th century France. When cameras finally roll actress Birgit Minichmayr (Grenouille's mother) struggles to keep from puking as she stands amid piles of rotting fish.

There's also plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of Whishaw and Hoffman who, according to the director, politely tussled for supremacy. It's a bit worrying, though, that Whishaw admits to sniffing the female clapper loader before every take. Towards the end of the shoot, the production ups sticks to Barcelona, where Twyker hires a dance company to strip off and writhe around gracefully for a mass orgy scene. This is followed by a lot of hot air about how "beautiful" and "moving" the experience is. We're not sure about that, but it's definitely fair to say that this documentary offers "access all areas..."

Smell-O-Vision

A cluster of behind-the-scenes featurettes includes an investigation into how Twyker tried to visualise scents. Naturally there were a lot of close-ups of pongy things like fish and fruit, but the director also emphasises the order of shots i.e. building a scene from a close-up that leads to wider angles in order to emphasise how Grenouille is guided by his nose.

There's a separate focus on cinematography with DP Frank Griebe talking about all the gruesome details in the imagery and the soft light he used for nighttime scenes (achieved with glowing balloons eerily floating about the place). A brief fly-on-the-wall look at how the sound mixers work their brand of magic is also thrown in along with footage from location scouting trips to France and Spain. Aside from scratch-and-sniff packaging, this DVD has most angles covered. And the luxury of watching it on your own sofa mitigates the bum-numbing effects of a long runtime - to some extent anyway...

EXTRA FEATURES

Perfume DVD is released on Monday 30th April 2007.