Based on the bestselling novel by Patrick Suskind, "Perfume" is a story of murder and obsession set in 18th-century France. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille has a unique talent for discerning the scents and smells that swirl around him, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. Strangely lacking any scent of his own, he becomes obsessed with capturing the irresistible but elusive aroma of young womanhood.

"Perfume" is set in Paris in 1738, an era of gloom. The story begins when a young woman gives birth to a boy in the bustling streets of a vile fish market where she works. She later abandons the baby among a pile of rotting fish guts, the filth of the sewers and wastes from the market. A close-up of the baby shows him taking his first breath of his surroundings, his fragile lungs inhaling deeply and later bursting into cries at the gruesome scent that is to become his life. We later find out that the baby is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw).

The first few minutes of the opening are beautifully crafted cinematography. For a film involving the art of scent, this movie is visually engaging. Every projection is an attempt at sensory stimulation and sometimes you are left wishing that you can get a whiff of that perfume. And at times, you almost could. After a while, even the scenes of rotting fish on the streets begin to pique your olfactory curiosity.

Jean-Baptiste has an amazing gift - a heightened sense of smell. His consuming interest in this gift makes him a recluse, deserted by the other children in the orphanage he grows up in. He avoids human contact whenever possible and is often lured to strange, new aromas while oblivious to the hurried and harsh environment surrounding him. Upon 18, he is sold off to work at a local tannery where he laboured for years without question. That is, until one fateful day when he sniffs an extraordinary scent and follows it to find it emanating from a young, seemingly ordinary girl. To Jean-Baptiste, there is nothing ordinary about her. Her scent is intoxicating. He pursues her with childlike enthusiasm only to accidentally smother her to death. Her scent disappears. Thus begins his obsessive journey to capture and preserve the essence of innocence, beauty, grace and ultimately, passion - all through young, virginal women who have this elusive fragrance.

Whishaw portrays the protagonist with eerie vigour. The character runs deeper than the story itself. Jean-Baptiste is as naive as he is brilliant, dark as well as brooding and if you look closely, you may just see the genius of his pursuit amidst his disturbing practice. Whishaw's performance is commendable as the complex sniffer-murderer and even in all his eccentricities, we can almost see ourselves within Jean-Baptiste's character. His objective is simple but everyone reacts differently to different situations and in a way, you almost want to justify his peculiarity. Simply because we all have our own quirks too.

As he journeys from the slums of Paris to the gleaming town of Grasse, the perfume centre, we see his character developing as he searches for a way to capture a woman's scent and create the ultimate perfume for himself. Leaving his unfruitful apprenticeship with Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) in Paris, he terrorises Grasse with trails of dead bodies - all of them young women who seem to have gone through a twisted procedure right after death.

This movie is an imaginative adaptation of Patrick Suskind's best-selling novel of the same name. Everything from the music score to the costume is beautifully rendered and it takes depth to produce every outstanding aspect of this dark film. Aesthetically, the film is a wonder to behold at and in the end, we manage to find the charm amidst the disturbing.