A dying man embarks on a search for his first love, who mysteriously
vanished a half century earlier.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Egill Ólafsson, Kōki, Pálmi Kormákur, Masahiro Motoki, Yoko Narahashi,
Meg Kubota, Tatsuya Tagawa, Charles Nishikawa, Sigurður Ingvarsson
Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur is known for helming
action movies (Contraband; 2 Guns) and survival thrillers (Everest; Adrift;
Beast) that are as rugged as his country's landscape. Touch, adapted from the novel of the same name by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, is a surprising departure for Kormákur. It's an achingly romantic
tale of lost love, a cross-cultural COVID-era epic that reminds us of the
losses we suffered in that period, and of how so much death made us
appreciate the simple pleasures of being alive all the more. At time of
writing it has an almost unheard of Rotten Tomatoes score of 92% from both
critics and audiences, which suggests nobody is above a good romantic
yarn.
Kormákur's films often feature protagonists who will do anything to stay
alive. Touch is centred on a man who doesn't have the option
of battling to stick around. In March of 2020, as the world begins to shut
down amid uncertainty around a strange new virus, Kristofer (Egill Ólafsson) is told by a doctor that it's time to get his affairs in order.
Kristofer takes this as a prompt to leave Iceland and head to London in
search of a long lost love.
Through flashbacks we see how in 1969 a young and idealistic Kristofer
(the director's son Palmi Kormakur) drops out of the London
School of Economics and takes a job as a dishwasher in a Japanese
restaurant in the centre of the city. He immediately bonds with the
restaurant's owner Takahashi-san (Masahiro Motoki) over their
shared past as fishermen. But it's his boss's daughter, Miko
(Kōki), who catches his eye. Despite having a Japanese boyfriend,
Miko flirts with Kristofer and in a way she's more English than Japanese,
dressing in the mini-skirts of the era. Despite his attraction to Miko,
Kristofer keeps to himself, not wanting to upset Takahashi, who seems to
have an argumentative relationship with his daughter. But eventually he
succumbs to her charms, and the two embark on a secret relationship.
Touch is the sort of movie you could warm your feet to on a
cold winter night. For an Icelandic film it sure is filled with warmth,
from the heat of the passion between Kristofer and Miko to the many
moments of human connection, like how the elderly Kristofer bonds with a
Japanese man over a drunken night when his quest leads him to
Tokyo. Kormákur has cast his film with actors who sport the sort of
faces that make you instantly warm to them, which makes the various
heartaches they conceal all the more affecting. As the young lovers, Palmi
and Kōki are revelatory, leaving nobody in doubt that these two
gentle souls in beautiful skins would fall head over heels for each other.
As the older Kristofer, the veteran Ólafsson carries himself in a
confident yet humble way that suggest he's a man who has learned a lot in
life but has yet to receive answers to its most important questions.
On its surface, Touch might seem like the sort of boring
melodrama that could have garnered an Oscar nomination 20 years ago. But
this is no cynical piece of awards bait. It's a genuinely heartfelt piece
of romantic filmmaking that skilfully balances the epic with the intimate.
It traverses the world but is centred on mapping the heart. We learn
details that its protagonist isn't initially privy to, and each time a
curtain is pulled back the movie exposes a new complicated layer. Life and
love are never simple, and we don't how this journey will end for
Kristofer. We imagine several ways the film might climax, and they all
feel like they might work. What makes Kristofer such a compelling
protagonist is his curiosity, how he always wants to learn and always asks
questions. This sees him embrace Japanese culture in a way that might see
him scolded today by the most boring people on Earth for his crime of
"cultural appropriation" (look at today's headlines and you'll see it's
not the culturally curious who are setting the world on fire). We don't
know what answer Kristofer will receive at the end of his journey, but
Touch reminds us that it's the questions we ask along the
way that will ultimately determine how ready we are to leave this world
when our number is called.
Touch is on UK/ROI VOD now.
