Touch: cross-cultural love story by turns tender and hollow

Set at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Touch opens as Kristofer (played by Icelandic musician Egill Olafsson) discovers his memory is fading and, heeding the advice of his doctor to resolve any unfinished business, sets off for London, despite the imminent threat of a worldwide lockdown.

Through a series of flashbacks, we meet the younger Kristofer (played by the director’s son Palmi Kormakur) in London at the end of the 1960s.

Disillusioned by the contemporary political landscape, he drops out of university and takes a job washing dishes at a Japanese restaurant, where he is taken under the wing of the proprietor, Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki).

He meets Takahashi’s beautiful daughter Miko (model Koki, also known as Mitsuki Kimura, the daughter of Japanese pop icons Takuya Kimura and Shizuka Kudo) at the restaurant, and the pair soon begin a passionate affair.

The structure of Touch sees the events of the past and present converge in a climactic revelation that explains why Kristofer and Miko’s relationship ended.

Suffice to say, Miko and her father fled Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945, with the dream of starting a new life in London.

Try as they might, the lingering impact of the event and the stigma of being hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – would continue to impact their lives for many decades to come.

In Touch, his direction is gentle and unobtrusive, almost to a fault. The film’s perspective aligns with Kristofer, as he, and the audience, is kept in the dark while the film’s Japanese characters wrestle with their trauma off screen.

Rather than attempt to explore the deep emotional scars that burden Miko and her family, the film prioritises the nostalgic reminiscences of Kristofer’s first love.

During these moments, Touch captures moments of genuine warmth and youthful passion. But elsewhere the film proves hollow and reductive.

Miko and her family’s struggles remain largely unexplored, portrayed by Olafur and his director as simply the mystifying enigmas of an exotic people.