Karin (Bono Andersson) is married, largely happily, to Andreas (Max von Sydow), and they have two children together. Seemingly bored by her life as a housewife, Karin starts an affair with David (Elliot Gould), a visiting American archaeologist. It's not clear why. She's not a serial adulterer. Very early on in the movie, David bluntly tells Karin he loves her and has since seeing her crying in a hospital after her mother's death. Then, Karin jumps headfirst into the affair with David. We never really learn what she sees in him that's so worthwhile that she's willing to risk her existing life, and the movie doesn't give us any good answers either. David seems not to treat her well and is - at an absolute minimum - highly emotionally unstable. Perhaps it's Karin's overwhelming maternal instinct that leaves her fawning over this emotional man-child. He backhands her; in response, she runs back to him.
As the runtime drags on, things only get more muddled. This is one of those unfortunate films that uses the Holocaust as a plot twist. We learn that David's father and many relatives were killed in concentration camps. This may explain some of his behavior, but doesn't move us any closer to why Karin fell for him in the first place. Later, we learn even more about David's family, including that there's a hereditary degenerative muscular illness. To lay it on even thicker, Karin is pregnant, and it's not clear whose baby it is. It all feels quite forced and heavy handed, with the plot developments dragging the film down. By the end, you don't feel particularly empathetic towards David or Karin. Maybe that's all part of the point: life is complicated; marriages are complex; relationships have many levels. What's not complicated, however, is the fact that The Touch certainly is not one of Bergman's better movies.
As the runtime drags on, things only get more muddled. This is one of those unfortunate films that uses the Holocaust as a plot twist. We learn that David's father and many relatives were killed in concentration camps. This may explain some of his behavior, but doesn't move us any closer to why Karin fell for him in the first place. Later, we learn even more about David's family, including that there's a hereditary degenerative muscular illness. To lay it on even thicker, Karin is pregnant, and it's not clear whose baby it is. It all feels quite forced and heavy handed, with the plot developments dragging the film down. By the end, you don't feel particularly empathetic towards David or Karin. Maybe that's all part of the point: life is complicated; marriages are complex; relationships have many levels. What's not complicated, however, is the fact that The Touch certainly is not one of Bergman's better movies.