Les cinq sens

"The Sixth Sense" bedazzled us last year with its supernatural trickery. This year, "The Five Senses" deserves equal success by being merely natural -being able to tell a human story intelligently. The film is a collection of love vignettes with each character cleverly highlighting one of the human senses. Writer and director Jeremy Podeswa has intertwined a human drama of finding a missing little girl with each player contributing an intriguing and equal share of the story, crisscrossing each other's lives in near perfect structure and execution. "The Five Senses" is what "Timecode" wishes it could have become. Mary Louise Parker heads a powerful cast, each member with an absorbing tangent that you merrily want to follow: Robert (Daniel MacIvor) the gay house cleaner who pursues true love by trying to find that distinct scent, Rona (Parker) the hopelessly unlucky lover who only sees what she wants to see in a relationship, Roberto (Mario Leonardi) her amorous counterpart too wrapped up in Italian cuisine to understand American courtship, Richard (Philippe Volter) the French doctor so consumed with his ominous deafness until he is rescued by an unexpected consort, Ruth (Gabrielle Rose) the massage therapist who tries to consummate her love for her deceased husband every time she touches a client, and finally Rachel (Nadia Litz), a composite of all the senses, a young woman blinded by guilt both past and present and yet using her senses to strive for forgiveness. "The Five Senses" is intelligent enough to show us how each individual uses their senses to try to escape their human quandary - some succeed and some don't.

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.

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.

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

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.