Rating: 
Summary: Drab, murky and uninteresting
Review: Beware of the blurbs for this film which advertise it to be "erotic" and "mesmerizing" - unless you find glimpes of pot bellied men sitting around a steam room erotic and mesmerizing. The story line is minimal, the characters are dull and uninteresting, and the cinematography is awful! And if you are looking for a gay themed story line, forget it! I saw the dvd of this film and the photography is so dark you can hardy distinguish facial features at times. Not recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful and tradgic film
Review: Don't be scared off by the subtitles or the fact that this film is a mixture of Italien and Turkish...it is well worth the effort! Beautifully scripted, acted and directed. It makes you want to run out and buy his next film.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost it's steam
Review: I purchased this DVD and was looking forward to... I guote "erotic, poetic, filled with romanticism" There was very little interaction between Mehmet and Francesco.(two male stars) There was a very brief scene between them. If you're going to purchase this movie for poetic romanticism it wasn't there. The movie is very high quality as far as camera technique, and the scenery is excellent. The actors are all believable and well cast.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good but Slow Moving at First,
Review: I really enjoyed this film and I do not generally enjoy subtitled movies. The characters were believable and I enjoyed watching the relationship between Mehmet and Francesco slowly develop into a physical and emotional bond. The only reason I did not give this film a 5-star rating is because I disliked the ending. I felt that it's message was one about the hopelessness and futility of gay life and that it has no serious future. This is simply untrue. There was no need to make the wife into the type of character she became. Great scenery and a rich introduction into Turkish culture and family life.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie from a Beautiful City
Review: I really enjoyed this film and I do not generally enjoy subtitled movies. The characters were believable and I enjoyed watching the relationship between Mehmet and Francesco slowly develop into a physical and emotional bond. The only reason I did not give this film a 5-star rating is because I disliked the ending. I felt that it's message was one about the hopelessness and futility of gay life and that it has no serious future. This is simply untrue. There was no need to make the wife into the type of character she became. Great scenery and a rich introduction into Turkish culture and family life.
Rating:
Summary: I'm on the next jet to Istanbul
Review: I'm keeping this review short. I loved this film. Although a little slow from the start,Francesco's and Marta's evolution took my breath away.
Rating:
Summary: This is a sorry excuse of a movie
Review: I've read several reviews of this film and it sounds great, a happy, romantic movie that, according to Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times and the DVD packaging "affirms that happiness is possible in this life."When I read one reviewer's comment that the film was well received in Turkey a nagging question began to grow in my mind and should have warned me. How could an openly gay film be well received in an Islamic country where the official penalty for homosexuality is death? Now that I've seen the movie, I know. There is nothing happy in it. Nothing romantic. And certainly nothing life affirming about it. It is a hate-filled message suitable for neo-nazis that tries to masquerade as a 'slice of life' The message is clear; it's okay to kill people if they're gay. Am I the only one who watched the whole movie, or did all the other reviewers walk out before the end. The video transfer to DVD is dismal; I had to adjust my tv's brightness and contrast to maximum to get a viewable picture and it was transferred cockeyed so that you have to tilt your head constantly to view the movie straight on. There needs to be a zero stars rating option here. What I wouldn't give for my money back and never to have been subjected to this trash.
Rating:
Summary: A movie for the higher mind.
Review: If you're "lower chakra", this movie will disappoint you. This movie beautifully portrays the many forms that love can take, including the possibility that a place can also fall in love with a person. (I like this idea a lot.) The character Mehmet talks about the 'way of the hamam - where you learn the love for all things'. This movie also shows a way of life in Turkey that is perhaps disappearing; an old style of architecture that is perhaps endangered there, as in the whole world, by developers. And this movie shows the wonderful ways of the Turkish people -they wrote the book on hospitality, and so many of them are totally psychic - if you travel to Turkey, someone somewhere will read your palm or your coffee grounds and will be amazingly accurate. They seem to be able to see right into your soul. This is a wonderful movie.
Rating:
Summary: Falling in love with a country ...
Review: In "Steam: The Turkish Bath" Francesco (Alessandro Gassman), an Italian interior decorator inherits property from an Aunt who lived in Istanbul. He leaves wife, Marta (Francesca d'Aloja) and business partner, Paolo (Alberto Molinari) behind while he travels to Istanbul to settle his deceased aunt's affairs, sell the property etc. Francesco has inherited a Hamam, a Turkish bath, which has fallen into decay due to its lack of use and growing cultural unpopularity. Francesco stays with a family who knew and loved his aunt, and while he intends to sell and leave as quickly as possible, he stays--reluctantly at first ...
Francesco resists liking Istanbul, and he resists liking the family who knew his aunt, but slowly he is seduced by the country ... and one of its inhabitants. This story examines the mystery of Francesco's aunt, and yet several tantalizing details are left unrevealed. "Steam: The Turkish Bath" is not a perfect film, but nonetheless it's fascinating in spite of its defects. Francesco is a problematic character and he remains an enigma. Ultimately, we discover more about Francesco's aunt than we do about him. Francesco's marriage is cold and sterile--that's evident in the first scene, and the filmmaker initially presents Marta as an unsympathetic character. It's a tribute to the filmmaker's skill that the perception of Marta seamlessly and gradually shifts until she too becomes a character with a sympathetic and very human presentation. The less-than-perfect ending is bolstered by the mystery of the exotic location and the sensual soundtrack. In Turkish and Italian with English subtitles--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: A Multi-Faceted Cinematic Gem
Review: It is almost impossible to tell a lot of stories at the same time without presenting an excess-baggage image, cinematographically speaking. "Steam" makes this happen, and actually it never gets overdosed. The film is about missing and finding identities, cross-culture exchanges, finding love and affection as part of a cultural expedition. It will be too much underestimation if we talk only about the gay part of it, because it presents way too much more than we can possibly bargain for. This is a social tale of individual lives. Hearthwarming and truely sincere cinematic gem.
| 
