Les cinq sens

Roger Ebert made a point once that you can always tell when you're watching a film made in Canada because they take their time telling the story. No different here as a bunch of fascinating plots all revolve at the same time. Some quiet surprises are sprinkled throughout that make complete sense to the characters but perhaps not as well by the viewer. Whenever you see Mary Louise Parker in any movie, you know you're in for something interesting. She plays a chef whose visual masterpieces never taste as good as they look. A highly original work of delicate screenwriting with some of the most potent quiet moments of any recent film.

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.

without any doubt, this film is a perfect manner to exemplify the human been that we are. In this country at this time, it is difficult to find it in the video store. All this kind of events can occurred and it is probably that in certain moments one pass some experience like some of the characters. Incredible. Perfect. Marvelous. Sensitive

The sense of sensing identity unifies these people by means of there (organic) five senses. They smell, see, hear, taste and touch each other by means of their sixth sense:they discover it by theirselves and by each other by means of the same senses. There are many more senses... But it is beautiful to see a film which show so many senses only by showing five of them.

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.