Touch Me (1993)

Directed by: Paul Cox | 29 minutes | short film | Actors: Gosia Dobrowolska, Claudia Karvan, Chris Haywood, Barry Otto, David Field, Norman Kaye

Independent filmmaker Paul Cox was roped in to contribute to a series of erotic short films, which were shown to the public under different names (in different countries). ‘Touch Me’ is his part in the series, often comic rather than provocative films and it can certainly be judged to be the better of the collection. The story is less amusing than its peers and certainly more exciting for those who are open to it. Actually, ‘Touch Me’ is a very realistic representation of relationships, sex and feelings. The actors are not particularly beautiful, but actually quite ordinary. Cox has already shown that he does not hesitate to let older people make love in front of his camera and that is again the case here. When Sarah makes love to her lover, we see his balding head and his bulging belly and in fact the realistic everyday of this is beautiful to see. In the short time that the film lasts, you are going to care about the two main characters, Christine and Sarah. Since the film is more or less open-ended, one can only hope that they both find the happiness they so lack.

The eldest, Sarah, is an artist, she paints and teaches students, who in the first scene give their own interpretation of the naked body of Christine, who poses naked in Sarah’s studio. In that scene, after the students have left, you can already notice that there is some sexual tension between the two women. They go to the countryside for a weekend and relax there. Although… Sarah continues to be bombarded by strange, quasi-profound but rather ambiguous faxes from one of her students. This kind of storyline makes it seem as if ‘Touch Me’ is part of a larger whole, and that you only got to see a fragment. That’s a shame, because the characters are likable enough – and the acting more than enough – to want to see even more of this relationship sketch.