Plot (mini synopsis)
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on 17th July 1738 in France. He was brought into this world on a pile of rotting fish guts and pushed aside to be shoveled away as if he never existed. Grenouille was born with an unimaginable sense of smell; his nose has the power to distinguish between the pheromone of one human to another. After the execution of his mother (for trying to kill him) he’s handed off to a boarding house to be cared for.
He’s sold to a tanner at a young age (the life expectancy of working in a tannery is very short due to the chemicals, yet Grenouille survived much longer). Because of his long time at the tannery, he’s allowed to go on deliveries. During one delivery he becomes intoxicated by the scent of a young woman, The Plum Girl. Grenouille wonders off in search for the origin of the scent and finds her. He frightens the girl, as she begins to scream he covers her mouth and nose to get her to stop but doesn’t exactly realized he’s suffocating her until she’s dead. Grenouille disregards that she’s dead and continues to smell her body until the sent begins to fade away. He is crushed by the loss of this intoxicating smell and is determined to find a way to capture this so if he is to ever find it again, he will not lose it. On another delivery, he meets Giuseppe Baldini, an old perfumer. Grenouille recognizes a perfume Baldini is covered in and tells him he can create the perfume if he’d be allowed. After recreating the perfume, he then creates an even better one to prove his worth to Baldini. Grenouille asks Baldini if he can come work for him so he can learn how to capture scent.
Baldini taught Grenouille everything he knew. He was told there were 3 chords to a perfume (head, heart, base), 12 scents in all. To truly create an original perfume, however there will be a 13th scent; one that pulls all the scents together and dominates overall. By doing this, he could truly be a great perfumer. Although Baldini gave Grenouille all his knowledge, it was still not enough. As Baldini did not know how to capture the scent of anything and everything. Baldini spoke of a place called Grasse, located in lower France, where Grenouille could learn to capture a scent he so desired. In exchange for journeymen papers, Grenouille gave Baldini at least 100 different perfume combinations. After leaving Baldini, the building he lived in collapsed, killing Baldini.
Upon his journey to Grasse, Grenouille found a cave where there was a near absence of smell, and he found tranquility within this cave. Several years passed and then from a dream he had about The Plum Girl, he woke up frantically and tried to smell himself. Grenouille then became aware of his lack of an odor, from this he found the drive to precede onto Grasse, where on this continued journey he smells another young woman that reminds him of The Plum Girl, she only increases his decision to learn how to preserve smell. In Grasse, Grenouille learned the right technique he needed to preserve the scent of humans, and this could only be done by murdering them with a single blow to the back of their head, and to preserve them quickly before the scent vanished.
“It turned out that lamb suet, pork lard, and beef tallow, rendered many times over, combined in a ratio of two to five to three-with the addition of a small amount of virgin oil-was best for absorbing human odor” (Süskind, 188).
Grenouille created the type of perfume described by Baldini, a perfume with 13 scents, created with the pheromones of young virgin girls. The perfume was so heavenly, that as he was to be executed for the murder of 13 girls, he puts on the perfume and everyone believes he is an angel, an innocent angel and he is set free. From the perfume Grenouille had created he could have ruled the world, and yet he returned home. He pours the perfume over himself and a group of homeless lowlifes are so engulfed with the smell that they literally eat him alive and believe they did so out of pure love.
He’s sold to a tanner at a young age (the life expectancy of working in a tannery is very short due to the chemicals, yet Grenouille survived much longer). Because of his long time at the tannery, he’s allowed to go on deliveries. During one delivery he becomes intoxicated by the scent of a young woman, The Plum Girl. Grenouille wonders off in search for the origin of the scent and finds her. He frightens the girl, as she begins to scream he covers her mouth and nose to get her to stop but doesn’t exactly realized he’s suffocating her until she’s dead. Grenouille disregards that she’s dead and continues to smell her body until the sent begins to fade away. He is crushed by the loss of this intoxicating smell and is determined to find a way to capture this so if he is to ever find it again, he will not lose it. On another delivery, he meets Giuseppe Baldini, an old perfumer. Grenouille recognizes a perfume Baldini is covered in and tells him he can create the perfume if he’d be allowed. After recreating the perfume, he then creates an even better one to prove his worth to Baldini. Grenouille asks Baldini if he can come work for him so he can learn how to capture scent.
Baldini taught Grenouille everything he knew. He was told there were 3 chords to a perfume (head, heart, base), 12 scents in all. To truly create an original perfume, however there will be a 13th scent; one that pulls all the scents together and dominates overall. By doing this, he could truly be a great perfumer. Although Baldini gave Grenouille all his knowledge, it was still not enough. As Baldini did not know how to capture the scent of anything and everything. Baldini spoke of a place called Grasse, located in lower France, where Grenouille could learn to capture a scent he so desired. In exchange for journeymen papers, Grenouille gave Baldini at least 100 different perfume combinations. After leaving Baldini, the building he lived in collapsed, killing Baldini.
Upon his journey to Grasse, Grenouille found a cave where there was a near absence of smell, and he found tranquility within this cave. Several years passed and then from a dream he had about The Plum Girl, he woke up frantically and tried to smell himself. Grenouille then became aware of his lack of an odor, from this he found the drive to precede onto Grasse, where on this continued journey he smells another young woman that reminds him of The Plum Girl, she only increases his decision to learn how to preserve smell. In Grasse, Grenouille learned the right technique he needed to preserve the scent of humans, and this could only be done by murdering them with a single blow to the back of their head, and to preserve them quickly before the scent vanished.
“It turned out that lamb suet, pork lard, and beef tallow, rendered many times over, combined in a ratio of two to five to three-with the addition of a small amount of virgin oil-was best for absorbing human odor” (Süskind, 188).
Grenouille created the type of perfume described by Baldini, a perfume with 13 scents, created with the pheromones of young virgin girls. The perfume was so heavenly, that as he was to be executed for the murder of 13 girls, he puts on the perfume and everyone believes he is an angel, an innocent angel and he is set free. From the perfume Grenouille had created he could have ruled the world, and yet he returned home. He pours the perfume over himself and a group of homeless lowlifes are so engulfed with the smell that they literally eat him alive and believe they did so out of pure love.
I chose this scene from the movie because you get to experience through the crowd how incredible this perfume was. It was capable of completely changing their mood from anger and disgust as they were about to watch him be executed to believing he is innocent and an angel.