Turkish Delight (1973)

I don't know if any 70s movie impressed me more than this one. Maybe only godfather.

Paul Verhoeven is known as provocative filmmaker who likes to create daring visual images. He's mostly known by his Hollywood films with unsteady quality. 'Turkish Delight' was Verhoevens first hit in Netherlands and was voted as best Dutch film of the century. With the very first minutes Verhoeven manages to disturb the viewer and unsuspecting viewer can even start to think - what I just got myself into? Very bold depiction of sex and sexuality doesn't seem forced and even the small bursts of intense violence don't stand out from the rest of the film as some bright (or dark) spots.'Turkish Delight' is heartwarming and heartbreaking love story between free spirited Olga (Monique van de Ven) and care free sculptor Eric (Rutger Hauer). Both main stars have such a chemistry between them that nothing seems to forced. Their relationship seems as natural as sunshine in Florida (or rain in London).Very few directors are capable of making such warm films with provocative aplomb and Verhoeven is master at this game.

Regarded as the most successful Dutch film, "Turks Fruit" (Turkish Delight) is a melodramatic romantic-tragedy directed by Paul Verhoeven.Verhoeven is renowned for his frank and extreme depictions of sex and violence, and "Turks Fruit" is no different. Violence, feces, vomit and many other scenes that western audiences are sure to find challenging, are on frequent display, presented by Verhoeven in a very matter-of-fact style.But it never feels exploitative. If anything, it's funny to see Verhoeven sticking his camera wherever he pleases. His framing here is also different to his other films, the director adopting a highly free-form style of shooting, lots of hand-held camera work, no storyboarding, little rehearsal and a preference for early takes, all in an attempt to captures raw and spontaneous natural performances.The film's plot is really insignificant. It's the tale of an artist (Rutger Hauer) who has trouble dealing with his wife's (Monique van de Ven) selfish mother. This friction leads to an intense courting and marital relationship. Eventually husband and wife grow apart, only to be brought back together by the realisation that Monique has cancer. When his wife dies, Rutger Hauer walks sadly off into the sunset. It's an R rated take on Arthur Hiller's "Love Story".It's a trite story, but Verhoeven inserts some simple visual metaphors to elevate things. Artwork is compared to the passion of romance, whilst decay and maggots crop up again and again to highlight the cancerous way the couple's relationship gradually collapses. The film is constantly switching between two aesthetics: a colourful, pleasing palette (good times) and a really nasty griminess (bad times). 7.9/10- Worth watching once for its style, bombastic pace, catchy musical score, and some beautiful Dutch women. Rutger Hauer comes across as a sex starved brute, until the final act in which Verhoeven lingers on his sculptors and artwork, all of which feature pregnant women and babies. Poor Rutger only wanted a family.

A relative of the earlier Lovestory (1970) - complete with sine qua non bittersweet denouement - Turkish Delight's dramatic device is a wrong-side-of-the-tracks match. Rutger Hauer's virile, semi-feral sculptor Erik falls for a similarly carefree Hippie in Monique van de Ven's Olga. Their unstoppable union has to negotiate the barely tacit disapproval of her bourgeois parents.What's interesting here though is that Verhoeven takes great care to neither judge characters nor cast them as straightforward pro- or an-tagonists. The couple's raw youth is magnetic (there are a number of stunts patently performed without doubles) but their irreverence can occasionally be as awkward as it is entertaining. Similarly, the outwardly stuffy parents and their coterie have a (characteristically Dutch) tolerance for the brash, carefree couple. The heartrending close to the film comes not by cause of intractable opposition between the groups but as an example of their ultimate similarity despite it.Verhoeven uses Speed director Jan de Bont as his DoP. Their collaboration is a feast of (meticulously framed) perpetual motion and zest, the very equal of Hauer's reeling id-boy. But it's not just a document of raucous youth getting it on. Verhoeven catches all the beauty and pathos of Dutch lovers caught in the post-60s cul-de-sac. 7/10