About this Short Film
The Anonymous Anosmic by Jacob Shrimpton (Australia, 2020) offers a quiet, thoughtful look at living with a sensory difference. Through its focus on anosmia and the way it touches taste, identity and day to day life, the film reflects on feelings of isolation, insecurity and individuality. Shot with sensitivity, it invites viewers to consider how the brain and body adapt when a sense is missing. Short and intimate, this work fits naturally within the Focus on Ability festival program, which highlights the abilities and experiences of people with disability. A subtle, human portrait that prompts empathy and fresh conversations about sensory disability.
Film Details
Country:
Australia
Category:
Open Entrant Documentaries
Genre:
Personal Story
Festival Year:
2020
Filmmaker:
Jacob Shrimpton
Film Transcript
It's impossible to spot me in a crowd of people. You can always tell the blind and the deaf by the way that they perceive the world and the way they communicate and interact with the stuff around them, but how can you tell if someone can't smell? I have anosmia — the inability to perceive smells. For all my 18 years on this planet, a key part of the human experience has been a complete mystery to me.
My nose works fine in every other aspect. I'm able to breathe through it; it sneezes, it runs, it gets blocked, it bleeds — it does everything but being able to smell. I am one in ten thousand people that have been born without the sense of smell. Ever since I was young, I don't have any memory of being able to smell. When I got diagnosed with anosmia by my ears, nose and throat specialist, he saw my nose and said he saw nothing wrong. In my case it's not a physical damaging of the nose — it's missing nerves that connect the nose to the brain. It's something that x-rays and brain scans can't pick up. I was either born without the part of the brain that detects smell, or when I was younger I somehow lost the connection between the nose and the brain.
I've had people in my life try to explain what smell is to me, but I just don't really understand it. It's kind of like trying to describe the colour yellow to a blind person — it's really difficult to put into words. For me, it's really scary to know that there is something that no matter how hard I try, I'll never be able to do. I don't know a single other person who is dealing with what I am, and sometimes it makes me feel really alone — not being able to talk to someone else who's experiencing what I am.
One of the questions I get asked most often is: how are you able to tell if you stink? The answer is, I can't. I have no way of knowing. Because of this, I choose not to walk anywhere on hot days. It's the reason I've avoided team sports my entire life, and it's the reason I never take my shoes off. I do endure a lot of social insecurity going about my day, not knowing whether I need a shower or not, whether I stink, whether my breath stinks.
When it comes to tasting food, the tongue is all I have. As powerful as it is, it can only detect the basics — bitter, sweet, salty and sour. Skittles taste a lot like crunchy rocks; most meat tastes like chewy leather to me. I'll have a really cheap wine and then I'll taste a really expensive aged wine and I generally can't tell the difference between them. For me, a nice cup of tea just tastes like hot water.
When I was younger, not being able to smell wasn't something that bothered me very much. It wasn't until I got older that it began to introduce problems into my life. If I were to step in dog poo, I wouldn't know until I took my shoes off. There's the constant inconvenience of having to wash all the stuff on my floor. I can't tell what's fallen out of the cupboard and what's actually dirty. If there's a gas leak, I won't know until I either asphyxiate or blow up into a thousand pieces. All of these are just little things, but it's the fact that everyone else is able to live their life and have these things not affect them that I get kind of jealous of.
There was once a time when I was in a classroom that had just been painted and I started to get really dizzy, but I wasn't sure why. Then I realised that the room had just been painted and it was the smell being emitted by the paints that was making me feel dizzy. I'll never be able to say to a girl, "Gee, you smell beautiful today." I'll never be able to say to my friend, "Oh, that does taste like..." and I'll never be able to say to my own mother, "Oh, dinner smells great tonight."
If there was a cure for my specific case, I probably would want to take it. I would be able to feel more connected to the people around me, feel like I can enjoy the food that I'm eating, and feel like I'm experiencing what it's like to live that life. If I did take a cure, my life would be very different to the point where I would be a different person. Anosmia has kind of made me who I am — why would I throw away who I am as a person, in my identity, just to become normal?
Filmmaker
Jacob Shrimpton is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Jacob Shrimpton.
?
0 comments
