Les cinq sens

In movies, as in most other art forms, the greatest of works often come in the smallest of packages. Such is the case with `The Five Senses,' an independent Canadian production that chooses for its subject nothing less profound than a meditation on what it means to be human. Writer/director Jeremy Podeswa has fashioned a work of great poetic form and insight centered around a group of people who share the universal need to find true love and acceptance in a world where wounded and shattered relationships all too often result in magnified loneliness and despair. Like all of us, each of these characters gropes towards the dual goals of intimacy with others and acceptance of oneself that are essential for human happiness. Some succeed, while others fail – just as in life – but none of the characters is left unchanged by the experience.

`The Five Senses,' though it has a plot, is more of an emotional mood piece than a narrative-driven drama. Blessed with an outstanding ensemble cast, Podeswa is able to draw us in to the center of his world through the use of sensory imagery and deliberate, methodical pacing. In fact, one of the strongest themes running through the film is its examination of the part our senses play in defining our world and character. Podeswa understands that we have become desensitized to our senses. As a result, he uses this film to reconnect us to that crucial element of our beings. The quiet, hushed tone, the muted autumnal colors, the slowly moving camera, the haunting musical score all combine to create an atmosphere in which the audience can become conscious of every sight and sound that comes our way.

In our effort to establish meaningful intimacy with other human beings, we most typically rely on the sense of touch – yet, this can serve, Podeswa shows us, as much to trap us into a false intimacy as to lead us into one that is genuine and lasting. A number of his characters use sex as a substitute for true closeness, while others make a physical connection on a much deeper level. One of the most moving moments in the film occurs when a gay man – most probably an AIDS patient – breaks down in tears during a massage session, his heart broken because no one has dared to touch him in so long a time. This film acknowledges the vital part that tender physical contact plays in the totality of a person's humanity.

In a similar way, the film explores the beauty of sound, as one of the characters – ironically, an eye doctor, a man dedicated to preserving the organ of one sense – faces the prospect of impending deafness and yearns to create a mental catalogue of all the exquisite sounds of everyday life that he will soon no longer be able to hear and that we so routinely take for granted. Yet, like all the other characters, it is his spiritual emptiness and inability to make a meaningful connection with another human being that bring him his greatest obstacles to happiness. Podeswa also examines the part smell plays in making that vital human connection, as one of the characters – a lonely gay man – revisits his former lovers to take a whiff of their scent in an effort to discover if he can smell `true love.'

Yet `The Five Senses' is not merely a movie built on a clever `gimmick.' On the contrary, it breathes with the fullness of humanity because each of its many characters emerges as a fully developed, instantly recognizable human being. There are teenagers alienated by their own inability to fit into the accepted norm of society and made to feel guilty by their acts of careless irresponsibility. There are mothers terrified of losing their children, in one case, literally, as her young girl wanders off and disappears and, in another case, figuratively, as her adolescent daughter seems to be slipping away into inexplicable `strangeness.' There are adults unable to comprehend a life filled with failed relationships who strike out in desperation for that one last opportunity for happiness, often with the result that they end up further away from that universally desired goal than ever.

One of the most daring aspects of `The Five Senses' is that it does not succumb to the temptation to provide either a `happy' ending or even a conclusive one for all of its characters. The film acknowledges that life is a messy, never ending process of changing fortunes and personal growth and it stays true to that theme all the way to the end.

This brave, haunting and mesmerizing film definitely stands as one of the true movie finds of recent years – a true work of art!

Chosen as the film to start the Perspective Canada series for the 1999 Toronto Film Festival, "The Five Senses" explores numerous lives in turmoil that are also intertwined in many ways.

Shot in Toronto, the story revolves around the disappearance of a little girl and how it affects the lives of those who knew her and those who feel responsible. More predominantly though, I believe it is about the bonds that are forged from one person to another in a variety of relationships and the strains that can test them. From friends old and new, parent to child, employer to employee, client to vendor, lovers past and present. All of these associations undergo a transformation of some kind in this film.

The film is beautifully shot with interesting set-ups but is not edited evenly throughout the feature. Scenes with Molly Parker and Mary Louise Parker are tightly edited and executed nicely, while some other scenes just seem to be drawn out a bit too much, the pace is a slow one, with numerous subplots that attempt to liven the drama.

But for art's sake and support of Canadian filmmaking, I would prefer not to draw negative attention to this film. There are some very moving scenes and excellent performances, but at the same time, I'm not sure I can recommend this one to just anyone.

The promise Jeremy Podeswa gave with his first film "Eclipse" is really fulfilled now in his second "Five Senses". Authentic atmosphere and the various aspects of a little bit neurotic life-feeling of metropolitain people is again in his new film. Podeswa has an astonishing hand for showing the daily tragedies with credibility and he really cares about his protagonists. Intelligent dialogues and good actors complete the very good first impression. A director with a great future !

The five senses is a truly lovely film. It takes a look into the lives of several people, most of whom are somehow the embodiment of a sense. Yet the fact that they are so involved in a particular sense prevents them from experiencing life fully.

Sight is embodied in a young woman who bakes designer cakes. The cakes are visually stunning, but she has very little regard to how they taste. Sight is also the sense of a young man who voyeuristically watches men hook up in a park, but doesn't himself experience physical fulfilment.

Hearing is embodied in the bittersweet story of a doctor who is losing his hearing, and is concerned with hearing this favorite sounds one last time. Smell is personified by a young man who is convinced that love has a smell, and seeks out his former lovers in order to sniff them and see if they still love him. Touch is a massage therapist who seems to use her practice to regain the intimacy she once had with her now deceased husband. And finally, taste is embodied by the Italian lover of the cake baker who is constantly cooking, because it is his only real way of communicating with her.

These people's lives occasionally intersect because they all live work, or otherwise have ties to the same building. Their stories are woven around a larger story of a missing little girl. We get to know these people through short chronological glimpses into their lives that string together into a non-linear narrative. The device is similar to that used by Atom Egoyan, but the element of time is not distorted. In the end, not all of the stories are resolved, which is actually good because it keeps us thinking and allows us to revisit the characters and imagine a number of plausible endings.

The film has a beautifully austere formality about it. It meanders through its stories at a very thoughtful pace, and looks at them from a bit of a distance. We see very profound emotions before us, but experience them intellectually.

I can see that this film is not for everyone, but is great for those interested in a well crafted, thought-provoking experience.

An enjoyable quiet movie that examines people's perceptions of the world and themselves. Worthy of a watch. I enjoyed Gabrielle Rose's performance. She was good in "The Sweet Hereafter" and very engaging in this movie. The rest of the cast was equally good. I do have a problem with the title. I kept thinking this character is this sense and this one is that sense which distracted me from the unfolding stories. I think a more generic title like "Sense" would have been better. The ending was unexpected.