The film begins with the sentencing of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a notorious murderer. The story of his life is told in
flashback. He is seen born and abandoned in a French
fish market by his mother, who 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. He revitalizes the perfumer's career with new formulas, demanding only 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 saddened to learn that Baldini's method of
distillation will not capture the scents of all objects (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. Deciding to continue his quest, he leaves his 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. 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. After preserving the first twelve scents, he plans his attack on Laure. Worried about his daughter's safety, Richis flees the city with her, but Grenouille tracks her scent to a seaside inn and murders her 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 before falling into a massive
orgy. Richis approaches him with his sword, but is overwhelmed by the scent and embraces Grenouille as his son. 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 the Parisian fish market where he was born and pours the remaining perfume over his head. Overwhelmed by the scent, the nearby crowd
devours him. The next morning, all that is left are his clothes and the perfume bottle, out of which one final drop falls. == Cast ==