Hamam - The Turkish Bath (DVD)

Steam: The Turkish Bath

Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek.
Starring Alessandro Gassman and Francesca D'Aloja.

Caution: This movie has subtitles.
Reading required but the great acting pulls it through.

Francesco is tired of his troubled marriage to Marta (Francesca d’Aloja), who is spending a lot of quality time with her male assistant Paolo (Alberto Molinari), and his career as a busy, successful ...
...recently deceased aunt has left him property in Istanbul.
Francesco (Alessandro Gassman) arrives to Istanbul the Turkish city hoping that he can sell the property swiftly and return to Italy. He is surprised to discover that the property is actually one of the last traditional hamams (old-fashioned bath houses) in Turkey and in great need of repair.
My immediate thought here was... Oh no! Interior designer meets old exotic house.
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Steam: The Turkish Bath

Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek.
Starring Alessandro Gassman and Francesca D'Aloja.

Caution: This movie has subtitles.
Reading required but the great acting pulls it through.

Francesco is tired of his troubled marriage to Marta (Francesca d’Aloja), who is spending a lot of quality time with her male assistant Paolo (Alberto Molinari), and his career as a busy, successful interior designer in Rome.
Then he learns that a recently deceased aunt has left him property in Istanbul.
Francesco (Alessandro Gassman) arrives to Istanbul the Turkish city hoping that he can sell the property swiftly and return to Italy. He is surprised to discover that the property is actually one of the last traditional hamams (old-fashioned bath houses) in Turkey and in great need of repair.
My immediate thought here was... Oh no! Interior designer meets old exotic house.

Is this like an episode of Changing Rooms?
Where's the guy with the long sleeves and the red paint, where's Handy Andy?

The lawyer in charge of the inheritance seems to dawdle and this frustrates Francesco who is not used to the slow pace of the Turkish culture.
Then the caretaker family that has been running the Turkish bath for his aunt, takes him in and Francesco gradually rediscovers a long-missing sense of family as he accustoms himself to their life style.
This rediscovery is helped along by some letters written to his mother that the old aunt left behind.
She gradually through these letters explains her love for Istanbul and the bathhouse.

Aunty was a FagHag, oops!

Matters become complicated though when the caretaker couple's daughter Fusun falls for Francesco, who discovers himself, increasingly and disconcertingly interested in her darkly handsome brother Mehmet.
Something inside Francesco brings out his love for the pace of life in Istanbul and his desire to have sex with Mehmet, and soon they become lovers.

Wow, this will really appeal to the straight guys watching. When does a married man suddenly decide that he is gay?

Francesco decides to remain in Istanbul for a while to help restore the baths.
The situation comes to a head when Francesco's wife arrives carrying divorce papers.

How convenient!

The ensuing conflicts cause Francesco great upheaval, but they also lead him to grow in unexpected ways.

I personally hate the end of the movie twist. It was unnecessary for me at least and did not add anything to the picture or the story.
I for one could have lived without it.

Having spent two decades in Italy, Turkish-born filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek brings a sense of realism in observing the cultural differences between Francesco and his adopted family.

That is exactly what I loved about this film.
The cultural differences that extended to male sexuality were in full view.
The husband of the caretaker family getting yelled at by his wife for staying out late with his “friends”.

Interesting note : He ran the aunt's bathhouse so he must know what Francesco and his son are doing. Right?

The son telling Francesco about the aunt and how he was initiated to the hamams.
This is a very unique look at the internal duality of the culture in Turkey and how it treats homosexuality by an unspoken set of rules.
As long as it takes place in a certain way and only among certain age groups.
Obviously also as long as you get married and raise kids too.
Fascinating topics that seem to be only hinted at in the most esoteric of sociology books.

Watching Francesco and his relative transition into homosexuality should bring up allot of uncomfortable questions about our own sense of self.
All those labels we love to live with, one must be simply straight or gay and there has to be a healthy dose of contempt for anything ambiguous or seemingly bisexual.

The other side of this movie is purely a longing for another time in the gay culture that took place before the coming of AIDS.
I saw this subtext right away.
Let me ‘an old dinosaur’ say, at one time there were places like these baths in America too.
Some of these places were huge and had movie theaters and cafes along with the steam rooms and private rooms and well, you know, sex.
I have never seen so many men or so many different ways to wear a white towel.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
Men of all levels of society (straight, gay, and unknown) met and had sex in the same way as depicted in the movie and these baths probably provided the same sense of community felt among the patrons.

There’s a thought, community, but but but, those places were used for... SEX!
This should bring horror to the more puritanical observers.
Oh the sleaze!

But fear not, there is but one scene in this whole movie that even comes close to the actual act.
It is pretty much just two guys in towels hugging, kissing, and sharing a cigarette.
That should have the anti-smoking crowd screaming in the streets.

It is interesting to see even gay bathhouses had a much more ancient origination than I had thought.
I myself once went to one of these baths here in San Francisco back in what now seems like ‘before the dawn of time’. Well, at least before my 21st birthday.
In fact I worked at one for a short time, yes that’s right, you got me, I am a 'sexual deviant'.
Anyway, I can understand a lot of the dynamics occurring in this film all too well and some of the reactions Francesco has to them.

Do these bathhouses have any cultural value in Turkey?
Do these same places hold any cultural value for gay people?
Are these places outmoded vestiges of a more repressed era?
Is the politically correct idea that since AIDS these places needed to be closed for everyone’s health and safety or do we hate the thought of people going anywhere to have or explore their sexuality?
Could that ever be regulated by law or is it just so little old ladies can feel better about themselves?

Interesting thoughts in this day and age. 

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