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Review

Initially, Ferzan Ozpetek's (Steam: The Turkish Bath) film seems to be taking a well-traveled route: a man dies suddenly in a tragic accident. While going through his belongings, his widow discovers that he has been having an adulterous affair for the past seven years. It is here that the film takes an unexpected turn when the woman discovers that her rival is a man. To her surprise, her husband's extramarital involvement was part of a world far more colorful and intensely emotional than that of their loving, but sterile marriage. The film proceeds to examine the relationship that develops between Antonia (Margherita Buy) and Michele (Stefano Accorsi) when the widow pursues her desire to understand her late husband. The tension between the protagonists is at first the result of their sexual rivalry: the wife's anger at her betrayal, the lover's anger at always having felt second to her. Ozpetek, however, proceeds to reveal far more complex emotions: Antonia's incipient homophobia, Michele's anguish at the instability of a life without commitment, and, finally, the need that draws them together, an attraction that does not change their sexuality, but underscores their differences with a bond that both irrevocably separates and connects them.

Ozpetek, a Turkish immigrant and naturalized Italian, weaves a remarkable soundtrack from both Turkish and Italian popular tunes against which Buy and Accorsi turn in compelling, sympathetic performances in this heartwarming drama. (Italian, Turkish with English subtitles)

Robert Cargni & Elaine Petrov