The Perfumier is a German-language psychological thriller that follows a police detective chasing a perfumer who’s murdering innocent women to extract their pheromones and create the ultimate love perfume.
When a police officer who cannot smell chases a perfumer who murders women in a bid to create the ultimate human scent, it already lays the setup for a great thriller. Focussing on two contrasting characters – one who has the extraordinary ability to identify odors and one who cannot smell at all – The Perfumier presents compelling characters and poses burning questions about humans and their relationship with various smells.
Featuring Emilia Schüle, Ludwig Simon, and Robert Finster in the key roles, The Perfumier raises multiple questions about the motives of the key characters as the film sets the ground for a gripping thriller with its unique premise.
The Perfumier Story Summary
Sunny Valentin, a police officer, moves to a new town in hopes of being closer to her lover, Juro. Sunny, who can’t smell things, feels she is missing a kind of experience that’s alien to her. Moreover, Sunny also wished that Juro would choose Sunny over his family.
On the other hand, Dorian – a skilled perfumer – is on a mission to create the ultimate scent – the love perfume – for which Dorian starts murdering young women for their sweat glands to extract pheromones, the love hormone.
Sunny leads the investigation for what comes to be known as the “Bunker Murders”, and keeps surveillance over Rex, Dorian’s accomplice. When Juro decides to leave Sunny to get back to his wife, it only adds to the worries of Sunny who has hit a dead end with Rex.
Despite the seniors calling off the surveillance on Rex, Sunny continues to tail her. Rex leads Sunny and Juro to Dorian’s lair when Rex and Dorian get into a scuffle as Dorian attempts to destroy the scent that he had already created.
Sunny arrests Rex, but Dorian gets away and the case is closed with Rex being the prime suspect. Sunny chooses to hide the truth about what she found at Dorian’s lab and keeps Dorian’s perfume with her.
Sunny uses the perfume to make Juro return to her. As Juro continues to fall in love with Sunny, she discovers that she is pregnant. When Sunny realizes that she won’t be able to smell the unique scent of her baby, she decides to pursue the trail of the perfumer to seek his help.
Sunny’s instinct leads her to the bunker where Rex killed all the women. Sunny finds Dorian hidden there in an injured condition. Sunny seeks Dorian’s help to be able to smell, and Dorian tells her that she has to get some special scents for him to do so. Dorian and Sunny enter a pact in which Sunny would protect Dorian and Dorian would teach Sunny to smell.
For Sunny’s smell training, Dorian makes her get an array of exotic ingredients that include ox blood, fennel, thyme, and pepper, among others. With Sunny failing to evoke her sense of smell, Dorian inquires about the moment in Sunny’s life when she lost her ability to smell at the age of seven.
Feeling that the efforts are going in vain, Sunny asks Dorian to give up, and Dorian, fearing that he will end up in jail if he breaks the deal with Sunny, hits Sunny in the head and throws her down in a dug-up hole nearby.
But before leaving the bunker, Dorian prepares three perfumers – one of which acts as his protective shield everywhere he goes. The next morning, he helps Rex break out using one of the vials of scents that he prepared.
The Perfumier Ending Explained
When Sunny regains her consciousness, she finds that she can smell everything just like she did before the age of seven. Knowing no bounds to her joy, Sunny decides to use the love scent she had in her possession. Swathed in ecstasy, Sunny invites Juro over to lose herself in the feelings she discovered after long. Afterward, she shares the news of her pregnancy with Juro, who decides to move in with Sunny to a new house.
On the other hand, Dorian reunites with Rex to create a better version of his love perfume after finding new inspiration from Sunny. Sunny’s insecurities regarding her relationship with Juro lead her once again on the trail of Dorian as she talks to Dorian’s father to find more clues about Dorian’s past.
Dorian’s father reveals that Dorian was born with a bad stench that repelled people from him. Finding a company in Rex, Dorian decided pretty early in his life that he will create a human scent that would transform the treatment he received.
Close to creating the ultimate love scent, Dorian tasks Rex again with finding the materials for his next creation. Sunny, using the information Dorian’s father provided, arrives at the place called “temple” by Dorian, where Dorian created his first scent.
To force Dorian to reveal himself, Sunny torches the temple. Dorian, in a fit of anger over Sunny’s actions, reveals to Rex that Sunny is the one who’s in possession of the first version of the love scent.
As Rex badly wants to get her hands on the addictive perfume, she attacks Sunny. But Sunny uses the strong aroma of the love perfume to get rid of Rex. The scent leaves Sunny unconscious whereas Rex experiences an episode of ecstasy. Rex finds herself at the hands of a group of men who brutalize and kill her after smelling the scent on Rex’s body.
Later, knowing that she would have to let go of Juro, Sunny asks Juro to return to his family. With Sunny and Dorian losing the people they love, they become dependent on each other as Sunny requires Dorian’s help to get Juro back and Dorian seeks Sunny for inspiration. Dorian tries to manipulate Sunny, but Sunny refuses to help him because she realizes that Dorian is trying to create the love perfume without even knowing what love is.
Is Dorian able to create the love scent?
With Sunny turning her back on Dorian, he turns to another master perfumer Mortiz De Vries who brings Dorian a machine that extracts the scent from the body of a person without the require of any incisions or cuts – a method that destroys the whole process of extracting scent according to Mortiz.
Although Sunny had moved on with her life, she again crosses paths with Dorian when he abducts Sunny’s neighbor Stephan to lure Sunny to his factory. Dorian believes that the scent of a baby is the final ingredient of his formula.
However, Sunny surprises Dorian when she uses a toxic odorless substance, which she had been carrying all this time to protect herself from Dorian. Dorian loses his great sense of smell and ability to preserve scents in his mind due to the substance used by Sunny. When Dorian is found unconscious in his factory, he’s arrested by the police, but he doesn’t give up on his dream of creating the ultimate love scent.
In the end, Sunny gives birth to her baby and enjoys her life to the fullest with her regained sense of smell. On the other hand, having lost everything he had, including his ability to smell, Dorian spends his days in agony in jail as he plans to achieve his mission one day.
The Perfumier is now streaming on Netflix.
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