'Perfect Sense' directed by David MacKenzie
If 2012 marks the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar then it may be time for some people to get busy. At least that is what the film Perfect Sense seems to suggests as a chef and scientist decide to indulge their carnal pleasure before December 21, 2012 … the last day on Earth. The winner of ‘Best New Film’ at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and a Sundance 2011 favorite, Perfect Sense brings together a chef named Michael who falls into a torrid affair with a scientist named Susan.
The film begins with the onset of sensory loss. People are losing their ability to smell and the main symptom is that they become grief stricken prior to losing their sense. What causes this to happen is unknown, only that scientists are trying to determine the if it is a virus or something more sinister. A sense of shock sweeps the European continent and people begin to emotionally disintegrate as more are affilicted with the condition.
Susan is a dedicated scientist who sacrificed love for her research in the Scottish town of Edinburgh. As an epidemic threatens to detroy humanity around her, Susan begins to cling to Michael as uncertainly and doom become an inevitable destiny. Their obsessive love begins one night at Michael’s restaurant when Susan loses her ability to taste food. She starts to weep and ends up spending the night being consoled by Michael. The worlwide pandemonium only pushes the lovers together as each other’s only source of stability as human life slips away.
The loss of senses also prompts the residents around Edinburgh to find new ways to express their state of deprivation. Out of compensation, people look to recall what it was to have experienced fragrances. In the search for a way to create memories of what their sense once gave them, Susan, Michael, and other victims push against the madness that will soon consume their minds.
What would you do if the end of the world was upon us? Can an impending apocalypse act like an aphrodisiac to sensuality starved souls? Is the terror of sensory loss enough to make you live like you were dying?