Touch (2024)

This movie from Iceland is shortlisted for the International Feature Film category for the 2024 Oscars, and is a parable about Iceland itself, where the population is so small that everyone needs to do two jobs. The filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur has crafted a bittersweet love story that manages to be both sad and hopeful at the same time, and goes beyond the expected. It is based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s novel (he also co-wrote the script with Kormákur--and as a typical Icelander, was both a businessman at Sony and an author) and centers on Kristófer (Egill Olafsson), who was a chef/student from Iceland who studied in London in the 1970's and now in 2020 is grappling with maybe a bad diagnosis. His doctor in one scene advises him that it is time to do the things you want to do while you still can. So he is now in search of Miko, a lost love who vanished without explanation when they were both in their twenties. This enchanting, poignant film crosscuts older Kristófer journey with a much younger Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s son) as he decides to leave his studies to work in a Japanese restaurant where he first meets Miko and now, when he is searching for her 50 years later. Miko (Kôki) and her restaurant owner father emigrated to the UK from Hiroshima. She’s a “hibakusha” (atomic bomb survivor) whose mother died shortly after she was born, and this important plot note is key to the secrets revealed in the film’s finale--which is wildly optimistic, but in a world where that is in short supply, it was much appreciated.