Plot
The film begins with the sentencing of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a notorious murderer, with an angry mob demanding he be killed. The story of his life is told in flashback.
He is seen born in a French fish market by his mother, believing he is stillborn, like the rest of her children, abandons him on the ground. When people hear Grenouille cry, they claim his mother a murderer and she is almost immediately hanged. Raised in an orphanage, Grenouille grows into a strangely detached boy with a superhuman sense of smell. After growing to maturity as a tanner's apprentice, he makes his first delivery to Paris, where he revels in all the new scents. He is particularly enchanted by a redheaded girl selling yellow plums, following her and attempting to sniff her, but he startles her with his behavior. To prevent her from crying out, he covers her mouth and unintentionally suffocates her. After realizing she is dead, he strips her naked and smells her all over, becoming distraught when her scent fades. Afterward, he is haunted by the desire to recreate her aroma.
When making a delivery to a perfume shop, Grenouille amazes the Italian owner, Giuseppe Baldini, with his ability to create fragrances, even though he doesn't know the scent names or methods to make perfume. He revitalizes the perfumer's career with new formulas, demanding that Baldini teach him how to preserve scents. Baldini explains that all perfumes are harmonies of twelve scents, and may contain a theoretical thirteenth scent.
Grenouille is sickened to learn that Baldini's method of distillation will not capture the scents of all objects and animals (or rather, people). Baldini informs Grenouille of another method in Grasse, and provides him the journeyman papers in exchange for 100 new perfume formulas. Immediately after Grenouille departs, however, Baldini dies when his shaky apartment building collapses with him in it. En route to Grasse, Grenouille decides to exile himself from society, taking refuge in a cave. During this time, he discovers that he himself lacks any personal scent, and he believes this is why he is perceived as strange or disturbing by others. He wishes to find a way to leave an impression as the plum seller did to him, deciding to continue his quest, he leaves the cave.
On arrival in Grasse, he catches the scent of Laure Richis, the redheaded daughter of the wealthy Antoine Richis, and decides that she will be his "thirteenth scent", the linchpin of his perfume. He finds a job and learns the method of enfleurage. He starts experimenting by first killing a young woman and attempting to extract her scent using hot enfleurage, which fails. He attempts cold enfleurage on a prostitute he murders, and successfully preserves her scent. He tests her scent by putting it on his hand and causes her dog to come to him like they would for their owner.
Having perfected his method, he embarks on a killing spree, targeting young women and capturing their scents. He dumps their naked corpses around the city, creating panic. Although the town puts in a curfew and arms the men, he is still not discovered. After preserving the first twelve scents, he plans his attack on Laure. Although a different man has confessed to the crime under torture, Richis doesn't believe it and flees the city with her. Grenouille tracks her scent to a seaside inn and murders her and captures her scent while Richis is asleep.
Soldiers capture Grenouille moments after he finishes preparing his perfume. On the day of his execution, he applies the perfume on himself. The executioner and the crowd are speechless at the intoxicating scent; they declare Grenouille innocent and an angel before falling into a massive orgy. Richis approaches him with his sword, but is overwhelmed by the scent and embraces Grenouille as his son. When the crowd awakes from the spell, they refuse to believe what happened and sentence Grenouille's landlord instead as evidence was found on his property.
Walking out of Grasse unscathed, Grenouille has enough perfume to rule the world, but has discovered that it cannot help him to love nor be loved like a normal person. Disenchanted by his aimless quest, he returns to his birthplace and pours the remaining perfume over his head. Overwhelmed by the scent, the nearby crowd pile onto him and he is never seen again. The next morning, all that is left are his clothes and the perfume bottle, out of which one final drop falls.
.jpg?width=400){kind=small}
