TOUCH

Notes tucked between the leaves of a book; plastic cherry blossoms; a verse or two of an old poem … mere ephemera, to anyone other than the people to whom these relics mean everything. The people in question in this sweeping romantic drama are Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur) and Miko (Kōki), the participants in a clandestine love affair in 1960s London cut brutally short by the obligations of family.

… The 1960s scenes are interlaced with scenes of Kristófer as an old man … attempting to track down Miko a lifetime later in pandemic-era London and Japan, with a view to reconnecting. These types of love stories are seductive; it’s never too late, they whisper – while at the same time showing, in the lost decades etched on Kristófer’s face, how very untrue those seductive whispers are.

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur takes a step back from the actioners (Two Guns, Everest, etc) for this sedately powerful romantic saga about closure.

It tells of Kristófer (Egill Olafsson), a widower whose ailing health spurs him to set out from Reykjavik and find the one that got away. Arriving in London on the eve of the pandemic, he is cast back five decades to when, as a disillusioned college dropout, he worked in the kitchen of a Japanese bar.

In tenderly appointed flashbacks, we see young Kristofer (Kormákur’s son Palmi) fall not only for Japanese culture but also for the boss’s beautiful daughter Miko (played by Japanese pop star, Kôki.

Love blooms between the pair, but an unspoken trauma sits just behind Miko and her kind father (Masahiro Motoki).

When Kristófer arrives at work one day to find the restaurant shut and the family returned to Japan, it becomes the life-long heartache he now seeks to resolve in the winter of his years.

Between its braided time frames, novelistic pace, and beautiful cast, Touch is an uncommonly poignant drama that balances rich sentimentality with more harrowing themes. Only cynics will resist a swoon or three.

Film Facts

• The film was chosen as the Icelandic entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, and made the top 15 shortlist, but was ultimately not nominated.
• The song “River Man” by Nick Drake is shown in the movie playing as a 7” single in the early 70s, but Drake, who died in 1974, never released a single in his lifetime.
• Egill Ólafsson appears on the DVD of ‘Les Misérables in Concert’ which was filmed at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the musical’s English adaptation. At the end of the performance, 17 Valjeans from just some of the world-wide productions sing ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ he is the Valjean from Iceland.