At the Taormina Film Festival, Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur spoke to Variety about romantic drama “Touch,” his adaptation of the novel by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson. The film was released last week in the U.S. by Focus Features, earning rave reviews and a 93% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Previously Kormákur has filmed Idris Elba versus a lion in “Beast,” and Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal versus a mountain in “Everest,” but in some ways this story of an old man, Kristófer, reconciling with a lost love as he faces early-onset dementia was just as daunting.
“My daughter gave me the novel for Christmas, and this piqued my interest, but she didn’t say much about what it was. Then I started reading about this old man looking back on his life, and slowly but surely it started tightening its grip on me. It was weirdly a page-turner in the most relaxed way.”
He was influenced by his own recent divorce when adapting the book. “I had been going through a difficult divorce a few months back, and that led to all kinds of reflection on your life and looking back. And though it’s very different than this story, it was one of the reasons why I called the writer two days after I got the book and suggested we would work together.”
The novelist proved a firm ally. “I’m not talking about a long list, but I’ve had issues with novelists before, and it’s not to say that I’m right and they’re wrong. It’s just about finding a shared vision. A film has to be the director’s vision. It can’t be the novelist’s. But Ólafur was very, very generous and had no problem with me changing things. He realized that from the beginning and wanted to help me visualize the way I wanted to change it. So, most of the changes came from me, but he worked with me.”
The film feels very forgiving, I suggest. “It’s about looking for closure; looking for peace and peace of mind with closure. Going through a traumatic experience like a divorce is almost like going through a loss situation. And I think it’s probably this I need to project into the world.”
As well as working closely with the novelist, Kormákur made the potentially dangerous decision to cast his own son Pálmi Kormákur in the role of Kristófer as a young man. The decision came about when a casting director suggested it. Pálmi did an audition tape, and it was sent to department heads and partners including producer Mike Goodridge and Focus.
“I sent them a couple of auditions, and he was one of them. And they all came to the same conclusion. So the decision made itself, and actually, to be honest, when it happened, I thought: Fuck. I’m going to have these interviews for the remainder of this film about this choice, but I honestly didn’t have a second choice. Also, it was so important to me that not only was he right for the movie, but I don’t want to hurt my child. His life is more valuable to me than the film. Sofia Coppola, I know, had a very difficult time of being cast in ‘The Godfather Part III.’”
The older Kristófer is played by veteran actor and musician Egill Olaffson, who also was to bring with him some health issues as he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. “I decided to give an extra week, so I can slow down his shooting a bit, and I think it was wonderful because every movement is difficult for him, and I wanted that to be like every moment for this guy. He’s just on his last legs, trying to get there and it’s not easy.”
One particular problem was that Pálmi is lefthanded and Egill righthanded, and as the more complicated work was done by young Kristófer so it was Egill who had to learn to do things lefthandedly. “In the Japanese restaurant scene, Egill is speaking three languages in the scene. With all the difficulties of cognition with the Parkinson’s and then for him not only he had to be eating in the same way, with chopsticks, and with his left hand, and with the accent. That is the worst thing. I put people on the top of Everest and freezing their noses off, but that’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever made an actor do.”
