“In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. Naturally, the stench was foulest in Paris, for Paris was the largest city in Europe. And nowhere in Paris was that stench more profoundly repugnant than in the city’s fish-market. It was here then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th of July, 1738. It was his mothers fifth birth, she delivered them all here under her fish-stand, and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. And by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away with the fish-guts into the river. It would be much the same today, but then… Jean-Baptiste chose differently. “
Narrator from the movie Perfume
The story is about an unknown person with a special skill! Jean has a very sensitive sense of smell which makes him different from the others…I thinks there’s a bit of Jean in all of us! I mean have you ever wanted something so badly that you’d be wiling to do anything to have it? A want that would later become an obsession like what Jean had when he smelled the scent of a woman for the first time! That was the turning point for him! He finally found his purpose. He wanted to preserve that special scent only he can smell. And that same obsession would later turn out to be the cause of his death!Like us we are all unknown in this world looking for our personal purpose. Some die without even knowing it while others are lucky to find it just in time. But if ever we know what it is are we prepared to risk everything we have work for just to achieve that purpose? Jean found out his own purpose and he was ready to give up everything just to fulfill it! He had a talent which no one has and he can be famous if he’d choose to. But that wasn’t he had in mind. The story also highlighted the part where Jean discovered that he has no scent of his own. He can smell everything he had touched and eat but can’t smell his own scent! Somewhat like what we do we try to cover up our own identity with something we think is appropriate and hide our true self! I don’t know what are we so afraid of…
