Review of Steam: The Turkish Bath (1997) by Rob D — 17 Apr 2008

This film, despite its subject, happily escapes cliche. While it does involve a Westerner in an Eastern nation 'finding himself' as a result of his connection to a down-home Turkish family and traditional Turkish bath, the film treats this not as something that all Westerners can do, but rather something that happens to this particular man. Ozpetek lovingly photographs his native Turkey and the city of Istanbul, tracing its old world beauty while dismissing modernized aspects. While I feel that Istanbul must be a bit more modern and a little less nostalgic than this, the film chooses to present one side of it in order to tell the story.

Most problematic for me was the central character Francesco, who goes from being stalwart granite to...well, stalwart granite. While we're told that he's changed, he's seemed merely to adopt one type of self-centred ideology for another--a egotist in Italy is still an egotist in Turkey, even if he has 'gone native'. Somehow I have a feeling that the real story here is Marta, whose shift in perspective is more drastic and more believable.