Visions of a Coming Time: “Out of Touch”
A Caucasian woman with a suburban air to her appearance stands before an emblem. It could be a perverse take on the “Star Trek” icon, or the seal of the Trump administration’s Space Force flag. Thus begins the vision of the future presented in “Out of Touch,” a new short film produced by Santa Monica College’s Film Program. Originally meant as a dystopian take on a near future inspired by current U.S. immigration policy, the sudden national insurgency fueled by the unjust killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis grants it an urgent, potent relevancy.
Written and directed by Bobby Murphy, “Out of Touch” is another bold brushstroke by the SMC Film Program, which is one of American film education’s great gems, hidden in Santa Monica, California. Under the direction of professor Salvador Carrasco, himself the accomplished director of the groundbreaking Mexican film “The Other Conquest,” and an exciting team of instructors with professional backgrounds, the program functions like an independent studio. Students provide the talent by pitching scripts, selecting producers, crowd funding and eventually shooting a professional short every semester. Completed films have graced major festivals the world over from Cannes to Prague and Arizona. They also span genres including comedies, westerns, socially conscious dramas and now dystopia.
“Out of Touch” brims with a stark realism within the dreamlike textures of a nightmare. The secure world of the privileged is personified by Marguerite (Barbara Williams), a white woman running for the Connecticut senate. She scoffs at the stances of her daughter, Penelope (Joelle Brianne Graham), a journalist who supports the plight of refugees attempting to enter the United States (or this proto-fascist version of it). Juxtaposed with the relationship of these two women is the journey of Isleen (Maroua Baaboura), an eastern refugee in near-hiding with her daughter (Lillian Ersonmez).
Instead of functioning as a straight forward drama, “Out of Touch” borrows into the very psyche of our social divisions. Marguerite is conditioned to see immigrants as the eternal other, as a strange and foreign nuisance. While eating at a restaurant with Penelope she speaks condescendingly to Isleen, now working as a waitress, shooing her off like an aristocrat dismissing the help. But alone at home, her mind is haunted by dreams of Isleen, and like a portent sees herself on a ship at sea, surrounded by unknown faces amid ferocious waves.
In essence Marguerite is the very psyche of the nationalist American, convinced of her superiority and determined to believe this particular society would function best without “outsiders” in their non-suburban clothing or tongues bereft of English. Of course the great irony is that within the United States itself the citizens do not see each other as members of one single nation state. The current uprising inspired by the events in Minneapolis exposes the very fissures within the dream of a unified country where all are equal, united by a common language and by a shared consumption of popular culture. Early in “Out of Touch” Marguerite gets into a tense exchange with a vendor (Damian Delgado) after she sees Penelope’s news broadcast and dismisses it as “liberal nonsense.” The vendor tries to reason with her that refugees are human beings. But she has no time for it, in the same way that much of the American ruling class has no time for the plight of its minorities or working class. Only when they erupt in righteous anger and threaten the plush streets of Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills does the ivory tower take notice, and impose curfews to keep the peace. Like Marguerite’s dreams of Isleen the boiling urban centers of the U.S., its history dating back to slavery and through the Civil War, haunt the national consciousness like restless specters.
President Trump recently threatened protesters outside of the White House with unleashing fierce dogs and weaponry to quell their voices. But the refugee has always known the iron heel of the all powerful state. There is a scene in “Out of Touch” fierce in its urgency as security forces raid a restaurant of the sort middle and upper class patrons enjoy visiting, to snatch any illegal workers and refugees present. Weapons are aimed, even the hostess appears to get executed. Unarmed victims are slammed on the floor by SWAT-style commandos. It is Marguerite’s first taste up close of state violence. It marks the beginning of a shift in her consciousness. How many of the denizens who regularly spend on the lavish clothing and high-priced foods of The Grove ever gave L.A.’s class divisions a thought until rioters looted the mall, taking for free what they would otherwise struggle to afford? One also has to wonder what it must feel like to catch a whiff of tear gas in Beverly Hills. The very death of George Floyd, captured on video, brings to the average American’s television, phone or computer screen the violence of inequality. Even if they attempt to look away, those living in safety and privilege are now aware the image is there.
We can only hope that nationally there will be a change of consciousness similar to what occurs within Marguerite as she soon makes her way to a sea shore where Penelope is reporting on refugees attempting to flee in the same fashion as the countless migrants from Africa and the Middle East we have seen risk their lives in the waters of the Mediterranean. The bigoted politician becomes a person with open eyes, rattled by dreams in the night and terrible violence in person. Isleen and her daughter are also on that boat, the woman who scorned them and the mother trying to protect her child are united now, brought together by a world in crisis. As with the Covid-19 pandemic, the worst of times is what it takes to blur our artificial boundaries.
The casting of Barbara Williams is itself a poetic choice. Williams, who plays the role first with icy detachment and then with a flowering empathy, is the wife of the late Tom Hayden. A revolutionary and activist of the highest order, a keen intellectual who was always a participant of his times, Hayden symbolizes the sense of solidarity and social awareness sorely lacking today in the halls of power. “Out of Touch” as a work of art attempts to kindle that kind of awareness in the viewer. Damian Delgado starred in Carrasco’s “The Other Conquest,” still the only recent major Mexican production to address the aftershocks of the Spanish Conquest on Aztec culture, and the resulting gestation of a mestizo world.
In this era of streaming and the return of the short film as a genuine art form now easily accessible to the viewing masses, “Out of Touch” stands out as many things. First, as a student production it is an impressive feat, boasting production values akin to any high-end show or indie film. But it is more importantly a testament to emerging filmmakers feeling the muse of their era. The images on television of burning streets and passionate voices demanding a more just world demand an artistic response and imaginings of what could be. “Out of Touch” ponders a frightening future, but one we still have time to banish before it becomes reality.
“Out of Touch” can be viewed in its entirety here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-pPD2XPTtc&t=901s
Alci Rengifo is a Los Angeles-based critic and writer who currently reviews films and television for entertainmentvoice.com, riotmaterial.com and is an associate editor at the East L.A. monthly Brooklyn & Boyle. In addition his work has been published at the Los Angeles Review of Books and Counterpunch.
