Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 German film directed by Tom Tykwer based on the novel Perfume by Patrick Süskind.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is an orphan growing up in 18th century Paris. From the moment he is born, a scene which delivers a rapid series of focused visuals of objects (rotting meat, manure, dead fish, maggots squirming in carrion and disposed meat scraps, etc) in a squalid, public open-air meat market that all allude to a scent that would be, to any average human nose, extremely unsavory and repellant, and to the newly-born infant Jean-Baptiste, possessed as he is of extraordinary olfactory capability, surely shocking and most likely a lasting impression on the olfactorily-gifted babe. This fetid medley of scents does more to produce a healthy cry in the newborn babe than a smack on the bottom would normally do, and people around the market quickly turn on Jean-Baptiste's mother, accusing her of intent to abandon her child to die, though as explained in the film, all her previous brood had been still-born or did not live long after birth, so perhaps her culpability in this act is questionable. Regardless, Jean-Baptiste's mother is sentenced to death, and Jean-Baptiste is placed in an orphanage.
As Jean-Baptiste grows and ages, it is obvious that his presence, even before close encounter/examination, is extremely unsettling or at the very least disquieting to those he meets like the older children in the orphanage he is first brought to. Though he is still a newborn, the children decide he is evil and they attempt to smother him. However, like many other instance in the film, Jean-Baptiste narrowly avoids a death by intervention by another party or circumstances that draw him away from danger. Those who rescue him from these circumstances do not fare as well as he, usually meeting their demise not too long after delivering Jean-Baptiste from what might have been his own.
One evening he becomes entranced by the scent of a young fruit-seller woman and follows her. She rebuffs him but he continues to follow her and in a sequence where he tries to muffle her cries for help she is suffocated. He is devastated to discover that the smell which entranced him disappates shortly after her death. From then on he is dedicated with preserving scents andobtains a job at the perfume shop of Giuseppe Baldini where he proves himself via his amazing olfactory skills.
A key point in the film is when Baldini explains to him the secret to creating a great perfume: 12 "notes" and a final 13th to finish/complement the rest. Baldini relates a story of how an ancient tomb had been opened in Egypt, and that a bottle of perfume was discovered inside that not only still smelled pleasantly fragrant after thousands of years, but was so superb that supposedly all people on earth experienced a moment of peace. Twelve of the "notes" of the perfume were easily identified, but the last scent eluded discovery.
At Grenouille's request Baldini teaches him how to preserve scent, however, he is frustrated to discover that Baldini's method for capturing scent, maceration is not sufficient to capture the scents he desires to preserve. Baldini then informs him that there exists another method aside from the one he uses, enfleurage, but he is not educated in its secret. For further education on this he travels on foot to Grasse. Baldini dies after Grenouille leaves, when his house collapses on top of him and his wife. After entering into the service of the perfumery located there and learning more about enfleurage, he conducts an experiment on a girl he captures to find that the method was unsuccessful. He then pays for a prostitute to be a subject of his but she is alarmed and refuses when he lathers her arm in animal fat and procures a rounded sickle-like tool for scraping the fat off. In a moment of indecision, he strikes a death blow to her with the sickle and proceeds to continue his experiment successfully. He kills 12 young women, each time successfully conserving their scent. The authorities are puzzled by the fact that although the bodies are discovered nude, they show no evidence of rape. Antoine Richis, a wealthy and deeply-respected citizen of Grasse, deduces the method by which the victims are selected: Each of the girls was exceptionally beautiful. Realizing this, he flees the town of Grasse with his daughter Laura because he knows that she, being easily the most beautiful girl in all of Grasse, will surely be an intended victim of the murderer. He attempts to throw the unknown and unseen villain off the trail by sending his carriage off in one direction after leaving the village and riding off in a different direction with Laure. However, Jean-Baptiste is doggedly persistent and follows them across the great distance, following their trail of scent. Despite Antoine's efforts to secure his daughter's life, Jean-Baptiste catches up with him and Laura in the distant town and that night murders Laura. Having brought along equipment to finish the enfleurage process, Jean-Baptist finally finishes his work and creates the perfume from the scents of the thirteen murdered girls. At the moment of completion, Grenouille is caught and after a trial, sentenced to death.
When the guards of Grasse come to escort him from his jail to the place of execution he applies the perfume to his body. The perfume Jean-Baptiste has created is so incredibly sublime, it renders a hypnotizing power over all who inhale its odor. Jean-Baptiste arrives at the town square in a carriage, dressed in the clothes of the official who had originally come to announce to him his death. He walks to the executioner, and due to the smell, everybody, notably the executioner, the authorities and the public, abandon the idea that he should be punished. They are so entranced that they take off their clothes in the town square, and an orgy en masse ensues. Antoine Richis manages to resist the bewitching effect of the perfume at first, watching from the background as the public descends into their carnal chaos. He then approaches Jean-Baptiste with sword in hand, intent on delivering to him the death he had originally been sentenced to, but finally he succumbs to the power of the perfume and kneeling and sobbing, clutches at Jean-Baptiste, expressing a wish to adopt him as his son.
The townspeople later wake up from their trance, the sight and reality of what has occurred being so shocking, so traumatic that the event is removed from the collective memory. An innocent man is made the scapegoat due to unfortunate association with where some evidence had been discovered, accused of the murders, sentenced to death and executed.
In the meantime Grenouille leaves Grasse to return to Paris. He realizes that even the scent does not help him to love and be loved. In Paris, in the presence of a group of derelicts, homeless people, and other dregs of society he pours the remaining scent over his head. The group of people become entranced; the sheer volume of scent so overwhelming, they think him to be divine ("An angel!") and they pile on top of him and subsequently devour him, leaving only his clothes and the empty bottle on the street. The next day his clothes are found by street children and you see the bottle of perfume as it drops one last drop of the powerful perfume on the ground.
