Human Touch

Paul Cox’s film Human Touch is so full of pretension and self-importance, it fails to realise what most in the audience at my preview screening did… that it has barely anything to offer, and is undeniably boring.

It’s not often I want to go to sleep in the cinema, curled up with my head on Stuart’s shoulder, but I almost got there during Human Touch. Insufferably dull and vastly self-indulgent, this film spends so much time on ‘meaningful’ imagery, you could be forgiven for forgetting what it is about. That would be a blessing in disguise, however, as the plot centres on an appalling woman, played by Jacqueline McKenzie, with almost no redeeming features, who bears little if any resemblance to a real person. She is so introspective, and self-obsessed, it is impossible to relate to her, a problem I found with most of the characters in this film. Who are these people? Where do they live? I know no-one who is anything like them. And yet we’re supposed to accept this film, with its ridiculous protagonists, and absurd pretension, as being able to tell us something about our own sexuality?

After about 60 minutes I checked my watch, to find I still had forty minutes or so to go, and was dumbfounded! Hadn’t I been subjected to enough? It felt like hours had passed, and yet it had been only one of this dross. Suffering through the pain of watching the end, if only so I could write this review in an honest fashion, I was relieved to discuss it with several people later who all felt as I did. I was also heartened by others’ reactions at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival, reported here.

Whilst some of the art was interesting, and the wiremesh sculpture was appealing, overall this film is too heavily bogged down in conveying simile to reach anyone but the most ridiculous beret-wearing art school teacher. With little to recommend it, I find it hard to give it any stars at all, but Chris Haywood does a reasonable job, which lifts it above zero.

Avoid this film at all costs.