Muscat: In 18th century France, there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and notorious personages of his time.  His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille – ‘the man who had the best nose in France, the place he stayed flourished and the places he left dematerialised’. 

The story is set in Paris. A baby is born in the putrid centre, the fish market of the town. He was named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played by Ben Whishaw). He was gifted:  Grenouille had an outstanding sense of smell and was capable of distinguishing different smells from miles afar.

Abandoned by the fish lady – his mother – he is moved to an orphanage run by Madame Gaillard; his mother is guillotined. With his fierce survival instinct, he grows up fighting his battles all through teen years in the orphanage, until he is sold to the Grimm house tannery on a bargain of 7 Francs. Unfortunately for Madame, the bargain was short lived post his trade. 

Gradually, he becomes aware of the world beyond the tannery, where the utopia of unexplored smells lay in store for him, and he triumphs. He sets out to the other side of the world – not with the intent to distinguish between the good and the bad smell, but to find out everything that the world had to offer in the way of odours. 

He sniffs the sidewalks, eateries, and fragrance stores only to discover that it was never the Ersatz scent that drew him. Through his olfactory ability he navigates through the backstreets of Paris to find that peerless scent is that of a beautiful young woman. That is where the movie’s plot starts to gain momentum.

The plot unfolds when Grenouille has reasonable intentions, but his inadequate exposure to the outside world of fine men and women makes him unable to convey his genuine emotions.

The intoxicating power of the girl’s scent makes clear to him why it had come to his life so tenaciously. The meaning and existence of his miserable life had a higher destiny. Here, Grenouille indulges his secret ambition, triggered by a violent event in the Paris backstreets. He would learn how to preserve scent, so that never again he would lose such sublime beauty. 

He enters into an indenture with master perfumer Baldini (Dustin Hoffman). The old man’s fortunes are rekindled by Grenouille’s brilliance. However, he grows disillusioned with the inferior distillation methods for separating the essential notes of a scent.

Hence, he relocates to Grasse, the perfume capital of France, where the antiquated practice of enfleurage—the extraction of a flower’s essential oil – is handled. 

Grenouille has a fascination with crafting a transcendental fragrance. After receiving some technical master training he sets out to develop his own distinctive recipe. 

He starts by smelling and meanders across the streets looking for women who have enticing aromas. He approaches a woman on the street to engage in a trial, but when she declines him, his life spirals out of bounds – ‘It was the sweet smell of the life that drives him to kill.’ 

From that moment on, he goes on a murdering rampage and kills 13 young women in the process of perfecting his mysterious concoction. 

The local notable Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman), whose red-haired daughter Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood) coincidentally possesses a natural funk, is one of Grenouille’s sought ingredients, and that causes concern among the municipal officials. 

Ultimately, after meticulous investigation, Grenouille will be given the capital punishment with immediate effect; but the extensive diabolical project of Grenouille concludes with a ridiculously overdone scene of a public intimacy around each other in frenzy.

On the trail stands this murderous trailblazer who is being addressed as an angel. 

But nothing could ever stand up to the alluring aroma of the plum girl; not even his magnificent masterpiece could ever take his thoughts away from the first women he ‘fragrentfully’ fell in love with. 

A scented love and his perfumed murders! 

Murder is a very foul smelling act, and the writers and the director brought in an aromatic indulgence to this hideousness. 

The movie is directed by Tom Tykwer, written by Tykwer, Bernd Eichinger and Andrew Birkin, and is based on the novel by Patrick Süskind.