07/08/2023 - Claudia Rorarius explores the fine line between arousal and abuse in her taboo-breaking, fleshy second feature

Isold Halldórudóttir (left) and Stavros Zafeiris in Touched

Perhaps the most provocative title in the Cineasti del presente competition of the 76^th Locarno Film Festival, Touched is both an ode to gentleness and a dissection of the cruelty that forbidden love can instigate. Forbidden not only because of disapproval from the surrounding world, but also because of the partners’ unease at picturing themselves in a relationship that exists outside of social norms. Claudia Rorarius’ close look at the characters’ unconventional intimate interplay, in combination with an ultra-sensitive camera managed by various people from the team, fosters the creation of a visually subversive piece of cinema that stays in the mind’s eye long after the final credits.

Beautiful, obese, and lonely caregiver Maria (Icelandic plus-size model Isold Halldórudóttir) develops an affection for her paralysed patient Alex (Stavros Zafeiris), who has recently suffered an accident and struggles to accept the unrelenting reality of his sudden disability. After she saves him from a suicide attempt in the rehabilitation centre’s swimming pool, her compassion and care for him intensify. As she tries to stir his numb limbs, her own need for caresses awakens and she crosses the line of what is allowed between nurse and patient. Soon, they are intimate beyond mere thoughts and their relationship develops through the ups and downs of conflicting feelings; between lust and embarrassment, attraction and self-pity, and the genuine need for love clashing with the difficulty of embracing one’s own incompatibility with the imposed physical image of a person worthy of love. Inevitably, abuse sneaks in and viewers start wondering what is more derogatory: Alex’s sporadic verbal aggression and nasty comments regarding Maria’s full figure, or her infliction of erotic sessions regardless of the desires of her object of desire – a barely mobile person who has nowhere to run. The longing for touch and to be touched swirls into a deadly dance with erupting brutality, making even an ambiguously happy ending impossible.

Despite Rorarius’ clear-yet-subtle comment on ableist norms and beauty standards, the outside world is not directly blamed and there is no finger-pointing – apart from Maria’s colleague (Angeliki Papoulia, best known for her performance in Dogtooth [+see also:
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interview: Yorgos Lanthimos
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film review
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interview: Adina Pintilie
film profile], for example, another film that examines the sexuality of people who don’t meet established physical ideals. In terms of dramaturgy, the initially intriguing narration struggles to keep one’s attention towards the end, when the rhythm agonises into a loop of repetitive episodes and drags out the expected denouement. Nevertheless, the bold sensuality of what happens on screen is so powerful that one can hardly take one’s eyes off it, gripped by а blend of voyeuristic urge and heartfelt compassion. 

Touched was produced by Germany’s 2Pilots Filmproduction and Soquiet Filmproduktion.