Touch (2002) User Reviews

I found this film disturbing, engaging and somewhat moving.

[prohibited-name-1378 · 8/10 · 20 May 2002]

From the very first scene, this film is dark, and engaging as the viewer finds out what is going on, and then is immediately put into the mind of the central character.

The film explores a harrowing experience and one that in many ways is so horrific it is unmentionable. I found the tone, dialogue and atmosphere almost addictive, however the plot moves almost single-mindedly to a pre-determined end without much deviation. This is probably because it is a short film.

Not for the faint of heart - but I felt compelled to keep on watching.

A moving peek into a damaged psyche

[Havan_IronOak · 9/10 · 21 November 2002]

An 8 year old child is abducted and imprisoned for 8 years by a abusive child molester. Since the only human contact he has is in the form of sexual abuse by his captor, he learns to mistake the abuse he receives for affection.

When he escapes he has trouble returning to a normal life and cannot "unlearn" some of the twisted lessons that this life has taught him.

As moving as this story would be from any viewpoint, its first person narrative style makes it truly moving.

I saw this at a film festival with over 40 other films and of everything I saw this was the best film of the lot. It was NOT an enjoyable film but the story it tells and the perspectives it imparts are worth the ordeal of viewing it.

Disturbing Short Film

[baker-9 · 17 June 2003]

I saw this as part of a compilation of gay-themed shorts entitled "Boys Briefs 2," (advertised as stories about "gay first lust") and wasn't prepared for the dark, disturbing tale that unfolds here. "Touch" gives us a fractured narrative about a young teen who was imprisoned and sexually & physically abused by his captor for quite some time. How much isn't really clear, though the occasional flashbacks suggest that the abuser was a man who had been living with the boy and his mother.

What makes this short film so unsettling is that it is completely from the POV of the victim - now freed and living with foster parents. This young man now so identifies with his former captor that he cannot differentiate between real love & affection and being beaten - the two have been so thoroughly entwined in his traumatized head that he is set on a course of constant self-abasement to find his former "lover" again - or some equivalent from strangers.

The point the film makes is psychologically acute, and no less unnerving for being so.

Surreal Godless Biography

[itrevorallen · 9/10 · 16 July 2021]

Am I the only curious viewer at the mindset of the director? This first person story sounds like poetry from a broken desperate person, fractured from how you and I exist. A background without traumatic experiences could not have written this, surely.

The depravity we speak of in extreme cinema doesn't do justice like it does here. This movie is truly deprivation without any of the extreme exploitation or Hollywood gimmicks.

You cannot enjoy this movie.

You cannot hate this movie.

The movie just is.

And this movie is so calm, yet so stressful.

They got it right.

[rickyddc · 10/10 · 25 April 2004]

"Touch" is an extremely intense film. The director - or someone central to the making of this film - understand what it's like to be abused over a long period of time and how the effects of that experience persist even after the abuse has ended. It's all voice-over by a boy who goes to sleep in his own bed at the age of eight and wakes up in a bare, dark room. He lives in that room and others like it for eight years, visited from time to time by a man who beats him. (I think it's also implied that the man sexually abuses him.) When he's finally free, the film follows him, showing how (probably permanently) mangled he was by the experience. Very hard to watch. Extraordinarily well done.

Haunting & thought provoking.

[RavenArrow · 10/10 · 15 February 2004]

Be careful, this movie is both haunting and thought provoking. It will show you another side of humanity. One could even say that it introduces you to another type of erotic. A lot of life is all about perceptions and relativity. Without being judgemental, you can see almost the opposite of what you may consider reality.

Why was this a short???? Why not make this a full length movie!

[DarkSpotOn · 3/10 · 20 October 2023]

A lot of people are saying this movie is disturbing. No. It would of been if we had character development, a story, better picture quality and better acting.

If you are going to do a movie about CSA, i think you should make the movie longer, and get to know our victim, give me development. There's none here. Also the audio in this is terrible. Half of what the narrator said was hard to follow.

Honestly, there really isn't a lot here. What is here could of been much better. Instead of making this a short, i'd would love it for someone to make it longer, and actually put a story here, and have actors voice this. Lack of story and lack of voice acting.

Personally i think movies like Mysterious Skin, 3096 Days, Lilya 4 Ever, Your Name Is Justine, Apartment 407 do a much better job then this thing ever would. Why? Because every movie i just listed, have better acting, better writing, better picture quality, better everything.

This movie isn't terrible, but it could of been much better.

Moved by Touch but have a question about timing

[ron_english · 13 July 2010]

"Touch" brings us into the world of Sadism and Masochism from both points of view. The concept of the masochism enjoying the masochism is what earns "shrinks" a living.

However, the psychoanalysts of the "why's" is not my concern at this moment.

What concerns me is the timing of the years that lapsed between being held captive at the age of 8 until his release and entering high school. Was he educated during those years? The film indicates not. So, how could he go into high school ready for academics with no educational background?