Perfect Sense: A film that begs the question of what we are without our senses.
What are tongues that can’t taste paired with ears that can’t hear and eyes that see only darkness? Does skin than cannot feel have any purpose but to hold us together in a state of literal senselessness? Is there any meaningful existence beyond what we experience through sensory urges and vulnerabilities- those which lead us on through life, for better or worse?
Susan, an epidemiologist, and Michael, a chef, fall in love amidst the most extraordinary chaos imaginable: a world in which the entire human population suddenly loses each sense of the five in a short period of time. Theirs is a love that grows among the certain ruins of human civilization.
The courtship vacillates between a casual fling, an urgent, mutual passion -a last gasp in a crumbling world-, and the love of ages, up to the point at which they’ve found each other just before the darkness falls.
Watching them realize that what they knew of existence is no longer is absolutely gut-wrenching. Such a threat as losing the world of potential that the body facilitates cannot be taken less than personally, because it invites the presence of death. What would it be like to experience the world without the ability to interact with any of its creations? Handling a rough object is not pleasant, but softness is- the touch knows pleasure and handles displeasure and neutrality. We often live for the moments of pleasure, with the rest blending into the background of our lived experience. We take for granted that having the opportunity to interact with beauty in the form of light, sound-waves, earth ingredients, and fibers is a blessing.
Kaitlin Sansoucie 