The Kaleidoscope of the European Cinema

Touch Me

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An ambitious DV-shot, multi-stranded crisscrosser set in the contempo Polish burg of Lodz, Touch Me displays the kind of callow misanthropy found in young helmers trying to look sophisticated. Co-helmers Anna Jadowska and Ewa Stankiewicz prove they can do a gritty story featuring domestic violence and prostitution and told with dark humor.

The film weaves several sub-plots together. A shy policeman, whose neighbours ask him to arbitrate in a domestic dispute, falls in love with a woman 20 years his senior. The object of his affection constantly changes partners and runs away from the love that waits by her door. The second sub-plot tells of an actor who rather ineptly sells pots in tasteless commercials on third-rate TV stations. He is idolised by a 16-year-old girl who devoutly watches the home shopping channel. But she is driven to despair because the actor is more interested in a prostitute he meets in a brothel.