An afternoon in a hamam gets under your skin – literally. Dripping water tinkles on mosaic basins, interesting faces appears here and there, and the heat and moisture open your pores. Hamam are the intoxicating concentration of Istanbul’s uniquely syrupy charisma, and are best enjoyed on a cold and drizzly afternoon.
Hamam can, however, get a little boring. If a couple of well-built young Turkish guys don’t turn up, the second hour can make you a bit restless, as by then you’ve had a good steam, and now you want to get out and do something, and all that tinkling water starts to get on your nerves. It’s somehow appropriate, then, that Hamam the film has pretty much the same cycle. It’s gorgeous and warm, with a subtle story, simmering sexiness, and a palette of honey-bronzes, golds and dark browns. It’s also a bit too slow, and you may find yourself getting up to make some apple tea during the second half, without pressing pause.
Francesco (Gassman) is a married but unsettled Italian who travels to Istanbul alone to inspect a derelict hamam his late aunt has left him in her will. His autocratic wife, Marta (d’Aloja) stays in Italy crunching numbers and sealing deals. Marta expects Francesco to quickly sell the property for as much profit as possible and return home within a week. Francesco’s return is delayed, though, by his increasing fascination with his aunt’s life, told in dozens of unopened letters that she wrote to her estranged sister – Francesco’s mother – over a many year period after she had permanently moved to Turkey. Francesco decides to keep the hamam, and refurbish it. This conflicts with the ambition of an Istanbul property magnate, who wants to secure the property so she can bulldoze the block and erect high-density modern housing. Francesco also embarks on a tentative affair with Mehmet (Gunsur), a handsome local, unaware that Marta, who’s also having an affair, is heading to Istanbul to finalise the property deal and her dead marriage.
The love affair between the two men is the film’s high point, it’s the strongest storyline and the one that seems to hold the film together. As it takes place primarily in the hamam itself, it’s also a great visual motif for the film’s themes of memory, love, and the bewitching power of foreign exotica. The rest of the film does tend to sag, and the melodramatic climax is incongruous and almost silly. d’Aloja’s imperious and compelling Marta threatens to overpower the film, but frustratingly she’s been edited down to size, her good scenes pruned and her less interesting moments expanded. It’s sometimes interesting to see the goings on of old-fashioned Istanbul, with head-scarfed housewives yelling gossip at each other across cat-prowled laneways, but these scenes tend towards slapstick and stereotype and throw the film off balance.
Gassman and Gunsur are an attractive pair, and a smoky, arty, film that doesn’t neon light it’s gay lovers and parade them around as polemic gay pride objects is always going to be a superior film to something like, say, All Over The Guy. However, Hamam does drift quite a bit, and probably could have done with a bit less steam and shadow.
