The beginning of the story is terrible and disgusting. A disfigured corpse of the club singer Katharina Löefer was found in the country house. The murderer took the victim's hair, cut out the glands from the armpit and crotch, and brought with him C. Brrr's feces as a souvenir. Tough.
And then we are introduced to "friends" of Katharina: Thomas Butch - pimp and owner of a brothel, Roman and Elena - a nice couple on the outside, Moritz de Vries - perfumer from Paris, Danielle Sluther - a strange guy nicknamed "Toothless". Once they all studied together, lived and were friends at a boarding school. Katarina's brutal murder took the group by surprise and the first question was: who killed K.? It turns out that the kids had a snout in their guns, and in their school years they were not good friends and exemplary pioneers - they found out about their childhood in a noble way! That's why they start to suspect everyone and everyone...
I like to watch such shows, where the "zebra" not only ran but danced the cancan. As always, I'll start with "white" stripes and add "black" as I go).
I'll start with the most "striped" - the script. Eva Kraninburg worked on the script on her conscience, brought all the storylines to a logical end, and for this, she has a huge reputation. She made every effort to fit the idea of "Perfumer" into modern realities. I don't know how technically it is possible to "remove" the smell of a person, and then turn it into a liquid in a small bubble (in the show they don't dwell on it, just show the laboratory with a bunch of test tubes, bubbles, cones, and other laboratory utensils). But it sounds ominous and attractive. Create a fragrance that affects the person at the psychological level and allows you to manipulate the mind - it's both awful and unrealistically cool at the same time. Let's remember the magic perfume in Ocean's thirteen friends, who made the poor guy Abigail (Ellen Barkin) passionately wish "here and now" nosy assistant Japanese millionaire (Matt Damon). Again, Eva Kraninburg did not "meticulously and literally" carry the novel to the screens, she came up with a story full of dirty details, secrets hidden behind the facade of piety, disgusting secrets, and riddles, rotten souls; She tried not only to shock the viewer but to fill it all with her own vision of "morality", subtle behavioral analysis; she made an attempt to appeal to the audience's sympathy, sympathy, and understanding....but with the ending came the discrepancy. But despite this, she was good at it - she made the gray matter work.
She so clearly "points out and accuses" everyone at once that you feel like a hero from "Licedei" - "Suspect! Suspect everyone! Suspect more! Even stronger! Let's rest!"
I confess, the killer was a big surprise for me, and it's cool, but the "knowledge" gave rise to a huge mistrust because the question arose - how could he pull it all off ... and it's not cool.
I don't know where to put the following remark - to the pros or cons? I will introduce it under the heading: the color is gray. According to all the laws of the European genre - the story in the series is developing slowly, very slowly, but what is there to hide - it is in no hurry at all). Half of the "about-plot" scenes can be safely reduced, many simply crossed out, and the plot would not suffer from it. European detective series have two "troubles". The first is the incomprehensible (for me) urge of the authors of the script to introduce us to the subtleties of the private life of detectives. Ok, the detective has a personal life, and I believe in it and am sincerely happy for her, moreover, her "passionate novel" has a "story load", but why "rubbish" it so thoroughly and in detail? I do not need to know absolutely all her torment, and that she dreams at night as a cruiser "Aurora"? And secondly, Europeans often forget about the genre. And you unwittingly begin to get lost - perfume is still a love melodrama, thriller or detective?
And now "black stripes" went. The ending of the story upset. Approximately till the middle of the fifth series, all went logically and the cause-effect connection was "on the front line". But closer to the end of the series there was a failure, and the facts began to attract carefully by the ears so that at the end of the series, everything "coincided and matched. It is not clear how such a joint happened, but you will feel this turning point when the logic gave way to rashness, and the desire to finish the story "at any cost" has prevailed over the "deductive method". It's a pity! I've been grumbling once before - writers don't know how to start a novel, and writers suffer how to finish a story with dignity. Alas, Eva failed in the final.
Perfume was not for me a "breakthrough of the year, a masterpiece of adaptation by Patrick Zuskind, a sensational premiere of the year," but I once again convinced that the Germans know how to make a fantastic and high-quality series.