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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 33432
Released: January 23, 2001 |
| Our Price: $6.15 |
| Used Price: $4.75 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The talented ensemble cast brings humor and passion to five troubled and triumphant characters struggling to make sense of their world. Together they have almost nothing in common except the desire to experience true intimacy. Through taste touch sight hearing and smell their secret lives unfold. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/10/2005 Starring: Mary-louise Parker Gabrielle Rose Run time: 96 minutes Rating: R Director: Jeremy Podeswa
Description of The Five Senses:
Though set in Toronto and directed by Canadian Jeremy Podeswa, The Five Senses evokes the emotional geography of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs trilogy. Mightn't the senses do as well as colors to signal a chance-driven world where urban isolates miss and make connections in gloomy corridors and apartments, overcast parks, rainy streets, half-finished constructions? But Podeswa's almost aimless cutting among a clutch of apartment dwellers (each identified with smell, sight, taste, hearing, or touch) is more like a warm bath in easy solutions (or sad songs) than a bracing glimpse into the human condition. A masseuse named Seraph (Gabrielle Rose, The Sweet Hereafter's bus driver) ministers to a weeping boy unable to recall when he was last touched, but she can't reach out to her own daughter (Nadia Litz), a self-loathing teen with a taste for voyeurism. Down the hall, a music-loving ophthalmologist (Philippe Volter) sinks deeper into loneliness as he begins to go deaf. Upstairs, Rona (Mary-Louise Parker), who designs gorgeous but inedible cakes, is unable to quite trust the joyously sensual appetite of her Italian-chef boyfriend. Searching for true love by smell, Rona's bisexual friend Robert (Daniel MacIvor) discovers passing pleasure in a designer perfume with the power to conjure an unexpected liaison. If this were The Sweet Hereafter, the fate of the little girl who goes missing at the start of Podeswa's film might shadow these "sensualists" into radical transformation, perhaps even parole them from the prison of self. But The Five Senses never gets that far under the skin. Still, there is something pleasantly hypnotic, even liberating, about the way Podeswa drifts lightly over surfaces, never getting caught in the net of narrative. --Kathleen Murphy
The Five Senses Reviews:
Little known masterpiece -- find it, savor it, share it! 
2008-09-20 - First, I should admit that I am biased toward this film to start. I adore movies that have several different characters -- or several different storylines -- that begin weaving together and intensifying as the film builds to its climax. There have obviously been many films that have attempted this. Some have had more commercial, popular success, while others have succeeded in creating something more subtle and beautiful. "The Five Senses" definitely falls into the second category. If your favorite kind of film is murder, mafia, gang wars, and/or "lots of stuff blows up", this movie might put you to sleep. If you appreciate a movie that allows you a slice of life -- a moment, a day, a short period in a life where suddenly everything shifts for characters so real you're instantly enamored with them, then find this movie. The details, both in the dialogue, and on the actors' faces, as well as in color and music and setting, draw the viewer right in. I FELT for these characters, I hurt for them in their awkward, painful, yearning moments. Another reviewer here has mentioned that this film came from the writer musing on Diane Ackerman's book, "A Natural History of the Senses". If that is true, I'm excited to read the book, and see the differences, see how the book and lovely language becomes the muse for something as visual and populated as the film.
Other films that weave separate stories together into one story: "Crash", "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her", "Magnolia", "The English Patient" (somewhat), "Vantage Point", "Love Actually" ... "The Hours" (also a book, as is "The English Patient"), "Evening" (book first) .....
A Good Movie 
2008-08-31 - Not a great movie. Not a five-star classic that I'm going to watch again and again. Not what I'd expect to win all the awards it has. But it's good. It's better than the summary on the back of the DVD made me think it would be. Funny in places, acted well, written well. Some unusual plot lines, and I like unusual. So as I say, it's a good movie.
"Nothing can cure the soul like the senses" Oscar Wilde
2004-12-17 - THE FIVE SENSES is a film metaphor, a study of people all interconnected in a Canadian city whose characters are representative of the Five Senses; touch, smell, vision, hearing, taste.
TOUCH: Masseuse Ruth Seraph (Gabrielle Rose) is unable to connect with her young daughter Rachel (Nadia Litz) who wanders the world aimlessly disenchanted and is responsible for the disappearance of a young pre-school girl, the daughter of Anna Miller (Molly Parker), a patient of Ruth's, yet she is the sole source of 'touch' for a young desperate man who likely is an AIDS victim.
HEARING: In the same building is an ophthalmologist Dr. Jacob (Phillipe Volter), a devoted opera fan who is loosing his sense of hearing. TASTE: Also in the building live Rona (Mary-Louis Parker) who creates cakes that are beautiful but without taste. SMELL: Rona's bisexual friend Robert (Daniel MacIvor) seeks out previous lovers to see if he can identify with their particular smell. VISION: Rachel 's acquaintance Rupert (Brendan Fletcher) introduces her to voyeurism in the park, seeing men kiss, etc.
This type of matching the senses to characters seems a bit simplistic when put into writing, but the magic of how Director Jeremy Podeswa stirs this heady brew and makes it all weave together is the beauty of this film. The acting is superb, the story is intelligent and demanding, and the overall effect is a penetrating inspection of how we live our lives in relative isolation until destiny or a single event proves once again that we are one body of mankind. A very satisfying and edifying film. Grady Harp, December 2004
Using the Body to Reach the Soul 
2002-02-20 - It seems that year after year, Canadian cimena becomes the more soulfull in the world. Films like Egoyan's "Exotica" and "Sweet Hereafter" have been aclaimed world wide, but this "The Five Senses" also deserve be praised.
Director-Writer Jeremy Podeswa was very fortunate when he created a metaphor for each sense and used each in the main characters. The metaphors are easy to be detected, but not easy to be understood. You have to pay attention to understand how the main characters deal with `their' specific sense and what it changes his/her life through the movie.
The cakemaker who cooks tasteless cakes; a doctor who is getting deaf; a masseuse who is losing the touch with her daugther who, by the way, is starting to `watch' people; and a bissexual man who can smell love. To make things worse --or should I say better-- there is a missing girl, who virtually connects every story -- and senses. If you think it may read very simple, go and check this film. Things here are much more complicated as the look. Using material tthings like cakes, perfumes et al. the filmmaker reach the `spiritual' level and abstract concepts like love, friendship and family.
The cast deliveries very fine. It is very easy to get involved with all these people and their problems. The best ones are Mary Louise Parker -- as the cook -- and Molly Parker as the mother of the missing girl. Their work is so hearfelt that it is impossible no to care about them.
This is a film for grown-ups. It deals with subtle subjects that touch deep in the audience hearts and souls. Kids looking for some explosions, fights and sex should stay away from this movie.
Quirky French-Canadian romanticism
2001-12-26 - To understand exactly what writer/director Jeremy Podeswa tries to accomplish with 'The Five Senses,' it's first necessary to know where the idea for this quirky little film originated. After reading Diane Ackerman's remarkable book, 'A Natural History of the Senses,' Podeswa began to ponder ways in which he could translate to film her theme of how modern day life has overstimulated the five human senses to the point where we no longer remember how to appreciate sensation in its purest form -- we've become detached from that which is truly worthwhile in life.
The resulting work embodies the five senses in five major characters who all live and work in the same apartment complex. Each has issues surrounding a particular sense -- one has a hobbled sense of taste while another has a heightened sense of smell, for instance. Around this central theme revolve ancillary stories about a lost little girl and a teenage voyeur who meets his match in a rebellious girl. What these side stories serve to do is to force the main characters to look beyond their own preconceived notions and begin to consider what the world looks like when all five of the senses are fully engaged and appreciated.
If it sounds like a pretentious art-house flick, well, to a degree it is. The plot is there more to facilitate the main theme than to tell a cohesive narrative and everything from the cinematography to the music fairly screams "award winner" (the film was nominated for 9 Genie Awards and won for Best Director). The whole concept of basing the premise of a movie on the five senses is fairly ambitious and I can't really fault the director if the end result seems somewhat forced and contrived at times.
So then, how does it look? The transfer is offered in both full screen and anamorphic widescreen versions with the latter presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The film takes place in environments ranging from dimly-lit rooms with stark shadows to gray, overcast skies -- all of which are handled quite well. Colors are lush, where appropriate, and black levels are very solid allowing for fine shadow detail. It's a DVD from New Line Home Video, so the fact that the picture is near perfect should come as no surprise.
The audio for 'The Five Senses' is presented in English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes. Since the movie is mostly dialogue-driven, don't expect much in the way of dynamic range from the soundtrack. The soundstage is firmly anchored front and center with only a few ambient effects and wisps of music floating to the surrounds. But, voices are always clear and even the faintest whisper in a lover's ear remains audible. Extras on the disc are limited to the theatrical trailer, a few cast and crew bios and filmographies, and a very sparse offering of DVD-ROM content.
I found 'The Five Senses' to be an engaging film -- but one that requires a fair amount of attention to detail. If I had not known going in what the basis for the movie was I would have been hopelessly lost. Performances are, for the most part, quite good and the cast is able to work within the constraints of their particular characters to tell the story. New Line's DVD offers their usual stellar audio and video presentation and is without flaw -- although a few extras would have been most appreciated.
Fans of modern Canadian cinema along the lines of Atom Egoyan's 'The Sweet Hereafter' or Don McKellar's 'Last Night' are sure to enjoy the dynamic character interactions and deft combination of drama, humor, and sexuality. If you're a member of that rare breed then I can recommend 'The Five Senses' without hesitation. For all others I would suggest a rental to be sure that this complicated, and slightly flawed, film is right for you.
