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Zazel: The Scent of Love

1996 film by Philip Mond

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ639488 ↗
Source-derived summary

Zazel: The Scent of Love (also known as "Zazel: Philip Mond's Scent of Love" and "ZTSOL") is an American erotic film, photographed in October 1995 and released in 1997. In occultism, Zȃzȇl is a spirit associated with Saturn. The film was produced by Cal Vista Studios—reportedly made at a cost of $237,000—and was directed by Dutch fashion photographer and filmmaker Philip Mond, who also did the camera work and designed the costumes and special make-up. It was Mond's second adult erotic feature after Sex Off the Runway—and like his previous film, Zazel also featured a bevy of Penthouse Pets, including 1994 Pet of the Year, Sasha Vinni; 1995 Pet of the Year, Gina LaMarca; and 1999 Pet of the Year, Nikie St. Gilles.

The film included visually elaborate set pieces; extravagant costuming, make-up and body painting; and expensive filming techniques, such as underwater photography, not normally seen in such erotic films.

Plot

"Zazel" is the title character, a world-famous artist commissioned to create "the most arousing perfume ever". In the course of devising this scent, Zazel variously paints pictures, views photographs, and wanders among the flowers of her garden, each experience inspiring her to envision a powerful sexual fantasy. The film consists of nearly a dozen individually themed sequences which reference and recreate iconography drawn from mythology, religion, literature, film and even Jungian psychology. These include sirens, water nymphs, mermaids, flowers, the jungle, The Three Musketeers, classic old Hollywood movies, angels and demons, and the Jungian duality of male and female.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Zazel: The Scent of Love” as 1996 film by Philip Mond. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1995, 1997, 1994, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1996-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Zazel, Scent and Love can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1996 film by Philip Mond. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q639488. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1997, 1994 and 1999.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Zazel: The Scent of Love”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Zazel: The Scent of Love primary sources, Zazel: The Scent of Love archive and Zazel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Zazel: The Scent of Love”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Zazel: The Scent of Love” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.