Aleksandra Szczepanowska’s feature debut “Touch” is quite an astounding achievement.
It is as once a sleek, seductive peek into a Western woman’s efforts to fit into contemporary Chinese society as well as a glimpse into the fascinating world of blind masseuses, whose sense of touch is assumed to be especially heightened.
And while the title sense is explored in a handsome film that also heightens ones sight and sound, there is something else enhanced in “Touch” rare to cinema: smell.
From the moment the blind masseuse Bai Yu (Yuan Jiangwei) first encounters Szczepanowska’s society woman Fei Fei, across a city park, it is her perfume wafting across the public space, that stops him cold.
Born in Poland, largely raised in the U.S., Szczepanowska spent time growing up in China, which accounts for her excellent Mandarin, which likely helped her get her film made, the first indie made by a Western woman in China.
Her skills as an actress are plain to see; she exudes the studied intelligence of an Isabelle Huppert. The direction of her own screenplay is impeccable. But the real triumph in her work on the film may be as producer, arranging for the film to be made at all, and dealing with Chinese funders who were puzzled by the story — why isn’t it led by a man, particularly Yang Jun who plays her wealthy husband, who spends nights away from his wife and young son to gamble or attend high end brothels.