LOS ANGELES, USA – Baltasar Kormakur makes a radical shift from loud action movies like Mark Wahlberg’s 2 Guns and Contraband to an East-West love story, Touch . The result is a quietly compelling, tender drama-romance. Baltasar, whom Variety reported in 2013 was going to direct Universal Pictures’ Hollywood remake of Erik Matti’s On the Job (whatever happened to that project?), proves surprisingly adept in working in a different vein.
Spanning several decades and set in Iceland, London, and Japan, Touch is absorbing and compellingly peaceful (quite a pivot from Baltasar’s frenetic action thrillers) about an Icelandic man’s quest to find his first love, a Japanese girl who suddenly disappeared from his life half a century ago. This low-key, small gem is one of the best films in this year that’s already more than halfway over. One of Iceland’s best-known talents in film, Baltasar counts among his credits The Deep , his country’s entry to the 8 5th Academy Awards’ best international feature; Beast (Idris Elba); Everest (Jake Gyllenhaal); and the aforementioned Contraband and 2 Guns (which also starred Denzel Washington).
BALTASAR Kormakur directs on set of ‘Touch.’ Photo courtesy of Focus Features The filmmaker, whose father is Spanish and mother is Icelandic, recently spoke to us via Zoom (his comments were edited for brevity and clarity). He stressed that he had done more varied fare before and he was not confined to the movies in his earlier work.
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