Review of Turkish Delight (1973) by Josh G — 02 Jun 2009

Look at the reviews, especially here on Flixter, for Paul Verhoeven's films, and you will notice a common theme. That theme is that Verhoeven's Dutch films are far superior in every possible way than anything he did while in the United States. Having seen most of his American films and several of his Dutch films now, I can honestly say that I am less than enthused about his earlier output. Verhoeven's Dutch films from the '80s do not reflect his later directorial playfulness, nor his strong sense of satire, nor his grip on what the movie is trying to say.

Turkish Delight doesn't have a lot to offer. Erik (Rutger Hauer) is a playboy who beds a different girl each night, saving pictures and locks of hair in a scrapbook to remember his conquests by. One day, he stumbles across a sculpture that he made of a girl he once loved, which sends him into a reverie that takes up most of the rest of the movie. He remembers meeting this lost love of his life, a girl whom he met a mere two years ago. Erik is pretty much a jackass, childishly inciting food fights at a fancy dinner and such, and then he meets Olga. Olga, as it turns out, is as much a child as he is, at one point screaming wildly because she can't get out of the sand at the beach. Both characters are entirely unpleasant, and their relationship is hardly something that one can get drawn into.

It's not because they are unlikeable that the movie fails. It's not wrong to make a movie's main character unlikeable - not very long ago, Jody Hill did just that with Observe & Report. The problem here is that we are expected to like these characters for some reason. We are expected to sympathize with their plight. And what is their plight? They want to have sex and steal ice cream cones from people and otherwise act like petulant children, and the rest of society (Olga's mean old mother, in particular) just ain't having it. How unfair! Nobody understands how these two people love each other so much after spending, what, a day together? I can't imagine Erik and Olga every having a rational, adult discussion about their finances. Because they are not adults. They are children.

They go from being madly in love to on the brink of collapse. Olga has to come to terms with the fact that Erik does things his way, i.e. is a selfish jerk, and Erik likewise has to realize that Olga literally throws violent temper tantrums if she doesn't get what she wants. And then neither tries to communicate with the other, which makes the former resent the latter for it, or vice versa. And so on and so on, and boo-fucking-hoo, you're both big whiny babies. Get over yourselves.

It's hard to care about characters you despise. And what of Verhoeven's direction? He doesn't really do anything here that makes himself visible - none of the noticeably long tracking shots of his later years (which he doesn't even get credit for, while everybody's masturbating to Scorsese), none of the interesting shots where the camera begins upside down and then rights itself. No, most of Turkish Delight feels like a pretty standard television drama (only with much more nudity), nothing entirely special at all.

So... what? What? Is there something special here? Not really. The characters live out their annoying lives, the actors don't really do anything particularly memorable, the director is barely present, and the story ends with a forced sentimentality. I dunno, but Turkish Delight makes me a lot less interested in seeing the rest of Verhoeven's pre-U.S. films. If this is what I have to expect, I don't want to waste my time.