Perfect Sense
My favorite thing about this movie is the first symptom, an overwhelming sense of sadness. I would like to see a version of the film that ditches the loss of senses and focuses solely on emotional extremes that precede . Like the "moment of hunger", which is a bizarre, brief scene. I like the way it passes over the world like an eclipse and how people don't really care what they're putting into their mouths. But it's those first images of people inconsolable, mostly off by themselves or unaware of their support network trying to stop the grief. I loved it and I loved the way it would occasionally lead to violent outbursts of anger. It's unclear if that's the illness or people's angry reaction to what's happening to them, but Ewan McGregor driving out Eva Green and destroying his own house is a very effective scene. I want to see more of this. Are there mass suicides during this phase, because we don't see any and it would be interesting to learn that in the most extreme sadness people wrestle with the question in a unique way.
Losing the senses, not as interesting and compared to the more emotional symptoms kind of gimmicky. Also, it seems a more clear plan by the writer would have helped. Sometimes we see different people in different stages and sometimes it's like the entire world is hit with a symptom at the same time. It goes sadness/smell, hunger/taste, anger/hearing and joy/sight, but what about touch? For a film anchored by a love story, touch would be the most important sense for me to get into. Imagine if the sadness lingered, compounded by an inability to feel the warmth of a hug or hands on your face.
While I recognize the imagery and montage is working at something like Wings of Desire or Amelie, conveying emotions through imagery - this is pretty much the entire last section - it appears the film's path woke up the writer in me first and I found it all to be a handful of interesting ideas that aren't tied into one multi-layered film experience. I think the love story is meant to tie everything together, but I found it rather bland and often upstaged by the global pandemic.