Interpersonal Touch and Trust in the film System Crasher

The 2019 film System Crasher (Systemsprenger), directed by Nora Fingscheidt, offers a deeply emotional and complex portrayal of a troubled young girl named Benni. Benni, who experiences intense anger and aggression, has been failed by the child welfare system that was supposed to help her. The film underscores how trauma, abandonment, and systemic dysfunction shape her behavior, impacting her ability to trust and form healthy connections. This portrayal is not just a cinematic exploration of a young girl’s struggle but can also be viewed within the framework of psychological and neurobiological research on trauma and touch.

Recent research such as the 2024 paper “Out of touch? How trauma shapes the experience of social touch – Neural and endocrine pathways” expands our understanding of this link. The study details how early trauma alters the way the brain and body process social touch, not just psychologically but through specific neural and hormonal changes. These include increased threat sensitivity in brain regions like the amygdala, dysregulated oxytocin systems, and a weakened capacity to interpret touch as affiliative rather than intrusive.

In System Crasher, we see this trauma-body connection vividly in Benni’s aversion to being touched, especially her face. A particularly haunting motif is her refusal to let anyone near it, rooted in a traumatic memory of suffocation during infancy. According to the study, trauma-exposed individuals often develop what the authors call "touch dysregulation", an altered or blunt response to affective touch, which is normally soothing and trust-building. For Benni, touch that should represent safety is instead encoded as threat, and her violent reactions are not arbitrary but neurobiologically grounded.

The film’s nuanced depiction of her fluctuating responses (sometimes seeking closeness, other times recoiling or lashing out) also reflects what the study identifies as a hallmark of trauma: inconsistency in touch perception. This is driven by dysregulation across multiple systems, including the somatosensory cortex, insula, hippocampus, and oxytocinergic networks, all of which govern how we process safety, pain, and relational cues.

One especially telling scene shows Benni quietly accepting a baby's touch. Unlike the adults around her, the infant poses no threat, control or judgment. The study supports this dynamic: context matters deeply in how touch is perceived after trauma. Safe, low-intensity, and non-intrusive touch, especially from peers or neutral sources, can bypass the defense systems that are triggered by authority figures. This aligns with the paper’s suggestion that touch interventions must be gentle, predictable, and attuned to individual trauma histories.

Moreover, the study emphasizes that these neurobiological changes do not imply irreparable damage. Rather, they suggest that the affiliative potential of touch can be reactivated when delivered under the right conditions. This is the film’s quiet hope: that beneath the layers of pain, Benni’s nervous system still contains the capacity for connection, if reached safely.

Conclusion

System Crasher offers a powerful dramatization of what the science confirms: early trauma shapes the very circuitry through which we experience touch, trust, and safety. Benni’s story is not simply behavioral but neurobiological. The film resonates with the 2024 study’s findings on how trauma alters the brain’s response to interpersonal touch, suggesting that healing is possible, but only when approached with deep sensitivity to the embodied nature of trauma. As such, the film becomes more than a narrative. It becomes a mirror to research, and a call for trauma-informed care that acknowledges the hidden ways through which connection can be rebuilt.

Some questions for reflection:

• How can caregivers and therapists create the conditions for touch to feel safe again for trauma survivors?

• Why might a child like Benni tolerate touch from an infant but not from adults?

System Crasher is available on many streaming services. To learn how our research on touch and trust relates to this topic, visit: https://ceti.one/irenevalori/