David Maurice Gil | Scent / 2009

the scent of a man

by Douglas Messerli

 

Edward Gunawan (screenplay), David Maurice Gil (director) Scent / 2009 [5 minutes]

 

A young American-Asian man (Edward Gunawan), provided with a voice-over narration by David Maurice Gil, wakes up one day and can suddenly smell everything in a manner that he has never experienced before, becoming so sensitive to smells that each item he passes in the city, an orange, a persimmon, a live fish in the market, even mailboxes, the grass in the park, the bark of a tree has a unique smell; and each version of the object smells slightly different.

    So too does he discover that all human beings have a separate and distinguishable smell, and he begins, as he walks through the city, to smell individuals, from a homeless man to a nice middle-aged man, the aroma of whom he tries to catch before being noticed.

    We soon perceive, as he goes about his way, that he is attempting to find the small of a person who he has lost, his gay lover’s scent.

     And at the end of each day, he realizes that he will wake up again the next morning to search out yet again that special smell of his lost lover or perhaps a new one whose aroma is just what he is seeking.

    If this work is somewhat weak on its conception and dialogue, it presents a beautiful set of images as Gunawan makes his way through the various streets and other locations in San Francisco and Sausalito.

     The ethereal music is by Beyond Music.

 

Los Angeles, January 6, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2026).