Touch * * * *

Kristoffer wonders if Miko will still look the same.

Touch is an Icelandic drama adapted from the novel of the same name.  It's about an older person investigating his own past and trying to resolve a lost love. In the last year a couple of similar examples would be: Lie With Me and Past Lives

Kristoffer, a man in his twilight years starts thinking about a girl he'd fallen in love with fifty odd years ago.  He wonders, could he actually find her?

We cut to his youth in the 1960's and the girl in question.  Kristoffer is a student in London.  Disillusioned with academic education he finds a job in a Japanese restaurant as a dishwasher.   He is warmly taken in by the restaurant and soon he is learning the art of Japanese cooking. He is learning the Japanese language too.  The restaurant owner has a daughter, Miko.  Kristoffer and Miko fall for each other and commence a relationship; but she is adamant her father must not know.

Then one day Kristoffer comes to work to find the restaurant is closed and the owner has disappeared along with his wife and daughter, Miko.

In 2020 we see the older Kristoffer commence his journey to find Miko. Travel isn't easy, with the world exercising extreme caution because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Nevertheless he gets to London.    With assistance from the hotel where he is staying Kristoffer learns that when the family disappeared they returned to Japan.

And so Kristoffer gets on a plane to Japan to see if he can find the girl who was the love of his life in the 1960's when they were both young and beautiful, brave and full of hope.

Back in the 1960's we learn why her father did not want Miko to continue her relationship with Kristoffer and why he insisted Miko return to Japan. We also learn more about the atomic bomb that fell upon Hiroshima twenty years earlier. Yes, that event is related to the whole story.

Touch is a slow film but I enjoyed the journey along with the amusing and interesting characters Kristoffer meets on his journey: and I could not help but be moved by the tsunami of revelations in the final section.