Touch

Director: Baltasar Kormakur

15 June 2024

See

Kristofer (Egill Olafsson) a septuagenarian restauranter in Iceland has a health scare and is advised to tie up any loose ends. He sets off for London at the outbreak of Coronvirus to track down Miko (young and old played by Koki and Yoko Marahashi) whom he fell in love with as a young man (Palmi Kormakur) working at her father’s Japanese restaurant.

Think

The Landscapes of Iceland and Japan are the most severe and serenly beautiful I’ve seen. London not so much. But that’s where Kristofer and Miko’s story took place. Her father, Takahasi (Masahiro Motoki) is played compassionately as a Hiroshima survivor with the PTSD that involves leading to complications in Krisofer and Miko’s relationship having to be secret. How their young and old timelines interweave was as delicate and subtle as a madeleine. 

Feel

The lady sitting next to me made the thoughtful comparison to The Age of Innocence directed by Martin Scorsese, adapted from Edith Wharton’s novel. This too was a book. My favourite line is when Kristofer is asked why he came all the way to Japan not knowing if he’ll see Miko? People come to Iceland for the Aurora Borealis not knowing if they’ll see if, but they come anyway.