A dead woman is found in a pool. She's naked, her hair cut off, as well as tissue from her armpits and genitals removed. In charge of the arrangements are 5 childhood friends of the victim, nicknamed K. They include Roman who lives nearby and had something going on with K but who's married to Elena, the violent Butsche who owns a whorehouse, the black sheep of the group nicknamed "Toothless," and Moritz, a fragrance nose who develops perfumes.
In charge of the investigation is Nadja who is involved with the married father of two district attorney tasked with this case. The 5 friends are automatic suspects and even they suspect each other. In flashbacks we learn how they met at their catholic boarding school, except for Elena. K was the seductress who fooled around with Roman and Butsche and flirted with every man. Later on they met Elena reading the book the Perfume and she joins the group. Elena suggest they start experimenting with scents like in the book.
During the investigation cops find out that a kid from the boarding school disappeared and start searching for him. And eventually find him, with similar wounds as K. They also find out that K remained promiscuous during her adulthood. She became a moderately successful singer who took a different man home every night.
In repeated flashbacks we learn how Roman and Butsche had a falling out over the girls and how the girls were also used for revenge. Today the frictions remain between the two over Elena, now Roman's wife. Toothless remained socially inept, shy, single, and insecure and is undergoing therapy for it. Moritz seems to be the only functioning one, who actually is shown to have a job, and is intelligent. He provides voice-overs explaining things about fragrances.
Next, one of Butsche's prostitutes is killed in the same manner. Because Toothless visited her, he becomes the prime suspect, as we learn more about his relationship to Elena. He's of course the nice guy always willing to help, while Roman is highly abusive and constantly beats Elena but because of the daughter, she can't leave him.
One final victim appears as things start slowly unraveling for everyone. Nadja ends up pregnant and can't make up her mind if she wants the baby or not or if she wants to stay with the DA or not. He's not sure either. We learn about the motivations for the killing and who's behind them.
Parfum is your typical German crime procedural drawn out over 6 hour-long episodes. IMDB says they're 45-minute episodes, not sure if they were cut/censored in certain markets. There is very strong and unsavory material here so I wouldn't be surprised. Things proceed in a crawl, with countless long pointless scenes. The whole idea of a group of childhood friends never appealed to me, there's just too much history and past to which we are not privy. But here they did their best to include us with all the flashbacks, too many in my opinion. Until the final episode I couldn't even tell which kid was which adult. Those scenes of adolescence and sexual awakenings and curiosity are well portrayed. The crime investigation itself is pretty thrilling, but unfortunately not the focus. This miniseries is really about motherhood, parenting, about growing up without parents or with dysfunctional parents. And of course the motive for the crimes comes down to that all-important need to be loved, to be desired, to be admired. It's not as some reviewers claim about manipulation with scent, it's about what motivates people to do that.
Production is strong, as always with German programs though filmed during winter. The police work has a colder look while the scenes with the friends are warmer. The music is excellent and makes things more thrilling than they really are. Sometimes the music gets ahead of itself reaching a climax that isn't there. or comes later. The characters are all solid, except perhaps for the rather empty Roman and the dull adult Elena. Nadja, too, doesn't make the most compelling lead. The violent but funny Butsche and the smart, mysterious, and charismatic Moritz steal the show. A shame we didn't get to see more of them.
One has to invest a lot of time in Perfum, but ultimately it's worthwhile.
