Cast:
Monique van de Ven (Olga Stapels), Rutger Hauer (Eric Vonk), Tonny Huurdeman (Olga's Mother), Wim van den Brink (Olga's Father), Hans Boskamp (Shop Manager), and Dolf de Vries (Paul) Directed by Paul Verhoeven (#002 - RoboCop, #632 - Total Recall, #1922 - Starship Troopers, #2046 - Flesh and Blood)
Review:
Admittedly, there has to be a good reason to cover an erotic romantic drama film, particularly since this is probably the first review where one can accurately call it the biggest skin flick ever covered here. But why the hell not? The only real guideline for covering world cinema or any kind of movie is it has to be something interesting or promising enough (religious films and other certain films have a separate wall to try and get over). But the most important thing to know is that it actually ranks as the most popular Dutch film of the 20th century. No, seriously, the amount of people who have been known to see the film when it first came out a half-century ago corresponds to about a quarter of the population of the Netherlands. Obviously, film festivals won't tell you the whole story, but the country's film festival inducted it into the "Canon of Dutch Cinema". It is based on the 1969 novel of the same name (Turks fruit, in its native Dutch) by author/sculptor Jan Wolkers, who based the character of Olga of two of his wives and a separate woman. I'm sure you can tell that the book had quite a bit of fame to it by the fact that in one of the posters, the biggest part of the posters is Wolkers and the name of the book, and a cursory glance at a synopsis sees that that the film retains a good chunk of the overall structure from the book (of course, the book doesn't lend the man a name).
Do I need to say that the film is a hell of a trip for an adult to watch? You've got a film that goes from a revenge fantasy involving shooting someone in a dream going right to a scene of that same man, uh, well, finding a way to thrust his frustrations out. One will find folks finding horse's eyes in food or perhaps finding the best way to express their feelings in being in a room with certain folks is to throw up. Or perhaps you will find something to think about more than what's on the surface of cutting off hair from down under. Hauer had made his debut in television with Verhoeven's Floris television show in 1969. There of course would be numerous collaborations with the director, and both he and van de Ven starred in Verhoeven's next feature with Keetje Tippel. This was the film debut for van de Ven. Incidentally, this is the second of five films with Verhoeven as director where Jan de Bont (van de Ven's husband, coincidentally) shot the film, and he also had shot Blue Movie, the other big Dutch film involving sex that generated controversy first in 1971. All of this is a bit of window dressing to go for the fact that they make the ideal pairing to show the true qualities that comes within love in its thrusts and decay. You have the impulsive and energetic sensibilities expressed in van de Ven to go along with the raw coarse energy of Hauer that shows exactly how these two could ooze in and out of each other's lives without a sense of false notes. It is the type of erotic film that does not shy away from showing everything that comes in seeing both raw passion and debauchery. The intensity that come from these two could probably be used to generate heat for a grill, to put it lightly, although you can say that the other actors (the ones not involved in taking their clothes off) do their part pretty well in showing the contrasts that come within what people call "normal life", whether that involves telling the same jokes or reacting to the type of person their daughter has brought to their world. The film rewards those who look beyond images of sex and sees the side that comes out with looking on both sides of someone keeping a pigeon or marking the ultimate end of two star-crossed lovers for what makes a capable 108 minutes. With most of the marks and scratches you could expect from a film made by such a marksman in frank honesty, Turkish Delight is the kind of film to recommend for those who are mature enough to understand the passions of the day and especially those of the night, for which it endures heavily within its Dutch origin for pretty good reasons.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Son of Godzilla, because, well, why not?
No comments:
Post a Comment