Monday Night Cinema

Touch

(Snerting)

Iceland, early 2020. Widower Kristófer’s (Egill Ólafsson) memory has started failing, and he decides now is his last chance to track down his estranged first love. Through flashbacks, we learn Kristófer (Pálmi Kormákur) worked in a Japanese restaurant while he was a student in 1960s London. There, he met and fell in love with the owner’s daughter, Miko (Kōki). Now, despite his own daughter’s pleas and looming travel lockdowns, Kristófer flies to London to find Miko - more than 50 years after she abruptly left without a goodbye.

Baltasar Kormákur’s deeply moving film is based on the novel by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, who also co-wrote the screenplay. This is a rich study of love and grief that’s both heartbreaking and achingly romantic.