|
"Your
'Senses' Can Fool You" by Scott Mantz
"The Five Senses"
Mary-Louise Parker,
Daniel MacIvor
Directed by Jeremy Podeswa
It's too bad
that Hollywood directors don't get paid a royalty for each time
another filmmaker borrows their style. If they did, then Robert
Altman would be a very rich man (or at least, richer than he already
is). With "Nashville," he nurtured the technique of mixing overlapping
plotlines with interweaving characters, and it's an approach that
surely must have inspired filmmakers like Willard Carroll ("Playing
By Heart"), Paul Thomas Anderson ("Magnolia"), and even Amy Heckerling
("Fast Times at Ridgemont High"). Even Altman himself continued
to experiment with this method, with his sprawling "Short Cuts"
being one of the best examples of where it worked.
That said, it's
safe to say that the genre is in danger of wearing itself into the
ground, and it's only a matter of time before Keenan Ivory Wyans
("Scary Movie") takes his crack at a spoof (I can see the title
now--"Playing With Magnolias While Taking Short Cuts to Nashville").
Until that happens, there's at least one film that's fresh enough
to stand out from the rest. In fact, if there's anything to be learned
from the emotionally gripping and thought provoking "The Five Senses,"
it's that where there's smoke, there's not always fire.
"The Five Senses"
(no, it's not a prequel to that Bruce Willis movie) focuses on a
group of semi-connected Toronto citizens who are strongly effected
by their senses. Rona (Mary-Louise Parker) bakes cakes for a living
(taste), or at least, she tries to when she's not satisfying her
sexual appetite with her Italian boyfriend (Marco Leonardi). Ruth
(Gabrielle Rose) is a massage therapist (touch) whose introverted
daughter Rachel (Nadia Litz) loses the young girl she was entrusted
to watch (sight). Robert (Daniel MacIvor) is a bisexual housekeeper
who believes that true love can be detected by aroma (smell), while
Gail (Pascale Bussieres) is an optometrist who discovers that he
is going deaf (sound). Over the next few days, tensions escalate
while everyone tries to work through their respective crisis, and
they find out the hard way that seeing is not necessarily believing.
From the outset,
"The Five Senses" bears a striking resemblance to "Magnolia." Both
movies deal with loneliness and the reality that sometimes bad things
happen to good people, but where "Magnolia" centered more on forgiveness,
"The Five Senses" centers more on betrayal--that is, betrayal of
your own senses to the point where you can be your own worst enemy.
Each character excels in one area, only to falter in another without
realizing the irony of the paradox. For example, Rona makes cakes
that look good, but they taste awful. Gail makes a living helping
other people see, but nobody can help him hear. Robert tries to
connect with the smell of love, and when he finally finds it, he
realizes that it wasn't love after all. Ruth touches other people
for a living, yet she can't bring herself to come into contact with
her own daughter. And so on, and so on, and so on.
The premise
may be pretentious and the pacing may be slow at times, but it's
still a pleasure to see good actors deliver good performances. Mary-Louise
Parker puts on a brave face as she deals with her mother's illness
and her intrusive boyfriend, but she tries to supplant her ignorance
to her situation with a hidden strength. Nadia Litz, who bears a
striking resemblance to Christina Ricci, is entirely sympathetic
as the daughter who's alienation from just about everybody is broken
when she makes a connection to a boy more on her level. Daniel MacIvor
brings a touching vulnerability as a man who, for some reason, hasn't
found somebody to love, but by far, the strongest performance in
the cast belongs to Gabrielle Rose. She more than convincingly conveys
the desperate helplessness of a woman who must forgive her own daughter
while herself seeking redemption from the lost girl's mother.
Writer/director
Jeremy Podeswa adds to the mood of the film with dark settings and
dramatic lighting, and he lets his actors take their time with their
delivery. Depending on how much you connect with them, it will either
bring you further into the story, or it will push you away completely.
However, there is one scene that sums up the whole film, and without
saying what that is, let's just say that the characters portrayed
here are not the only ones to have their senses give them false
information. It happens to you too, and the result will leave you
feeling that sometimes it's a good idea to second-guess your instincts.
|
