Set at the time of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Touch begins when Kristofer (played by Icelandic musician Egill Olafsson) finds his memory fading, and he follows his doctor’s advice to clear up any unfinished business and heads to London despite the imminent threat of a worldwide lockdown.

In a series of flashbacks, we get to know the younger Kristofer (played by the director’s son, Palmi Kormakur) in London in the late 1960s.

Disillusioned with the current political landscape, he drops out of college and takes a job as a dishwasher in a Japanese restaurant, where he is taken under the wing of the owner Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki).

In the restaurant he meets Takahashi’s beautiful daughter Miko (model Koki, also known as Mitsuki Kimura, the daughter of Japanese pop icons Takuya Kimura and Shizuka Kudo) and soon a passionate affair begins between the two.

The structure of Touch In The Wonderful World of Madness, events from the past and present converge in a dramatic revelation that explains why Kristofer and Miko’s relationship ended.

Suffice it to say that Miko and her father fled Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945, with the dream of starting a new life in London.

As hard as they try, the lasting impact of the event and the stigma, Subscribe – survivors of the atomic bomb attacks – would influence their lives for many decades to come.

In Touchhis direction is gentle and understated, almost over the top. The film’s perspective resonates with Kristofer, as he and the audience are left in the dark while the film’s Japanese characters wrestle with their trauma off-screen.

Rather than attempting to explore the deep emotional scars that burden Miko and her family, the film focuses on the nostalgic memories of Kristofer’s first love.

In these moments Touch captures moments of genuine warmth and youthful passion. But elsewhere the film proves hollow and reductionist.

The problems of Miko and her family remain largely unexplored and are presented by Olafur and his director merely as mysterious puzzles of an exotic people.