Review of Steam: The Turkish Bath (1997) by Andrew G — 27 Dec 2007

Great lines from film:

Wife: I cheated on you with a man!

Husband: Me too!

But seriously: this film is about ascertaining what's really valuable in life. The protagonist is about to sell his aunt's hamam (traditional spa-like bathhouse) along with the house above it. The buyer: a sinister-looking woman who, we learn, is the representative of a group who wants to destroy this very old, but thriving neighborhood and build a shopping district in its place. She is buying up the properties under false pretenses.

The protagonist's staring into her eyes is an awesome depiction of a harrowing moral dilemma.

To me, this is the crux of the film, this is its moral and cultural significance and imperative: realize your potential within the wide and nurturing structures of family and community, past and present. One-sided, ego-centric living hurts you, your loved-ones, your community, your culture, in short: everyone and everything.

When I mentioned to a Turkish acquaintaince that I had seen this film, he rushed to assure me that his country was not like that. I probed a bit. It turns out he was not talking about being traditional (=life in this Istanbul neighborhood, going to hamams) but being...gay? As if I thought that all men going to hamams were gay? Or that hunky switch-hitting Italian men often visit hamams with hunky young Turkish men?

The film does not ignore this homophobic aspect which has its corollary in the response of my Turkish acquaintance. There are no explicitly gay men in the film. There are a few intense scenes between the protagonist and the young Turkish man where it is clear that there is strong fondness and some amount of lust between them, but also genuine friendship. This culminates in a kiss when both are alone in the hamam at night (and the wife, arrived from Italy, observes it.) But it is clear that they go no further; the young Turkish man tells the protagonist that he likes his wife's personallity; said young Turkish man is, if memory serves, being pressured somewhat to marry.

In other words, there are numerous narrative and visual cues to tell us that the two men were not in some utopic community where a gay relationship would be tolerated/accepted. Da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer: even though the community in Istanbul gave the protagonist a new lease on life, that doesn't mean this new self-conception would have been embraced without reservation.