Turkish Delight

Paul Verhoeven's Turkish Delight (1973) is a very interesting film. It is regarded by many critics as the best film to ever come from the Netherlands, presenting a blend of audacious, exaggerated comedy together with a raw, emotional force when it suddenly switches gears in the final act, revealing its former comedy as the foremost exposed layer of a battered psyche struggling to understand something intimate and personal.

For the first hour, where Eric Volk (Rutger Hauer) is perpetually consumed with sex and sex alone, the film seemingly exists only as a critique of bourgeois ideals and allows Eric to subvert these principles with his vagabond lifestyle. As a result, these scenes are understood as necessary, but seldom seem to be revealing. Eric’s inner torment finally comes about once the film returns to its beginning dream of Eric killing his former wife Olga (Monique van de Ven). It is here that Verhoeven begins to play with more intricate ideas of psychology and pathology since Olga clearly desires Eric, yet she remains faithful to her upper crust parents and so she turns on her former lover and spouse.

For his part, Eric has done much to lead Olga into this decision. His refusal to mature is simultaneously his strongest attribute and his downfall, since he never maintains a steady income and often sells only the artwork that is most inappropriate to her, making what was once a private affair public. Yet there such moments of power when the two are together, most memorably the scene where the two lie in the street amidst a torrential downpour and just relax in each other’s arms, and these moments speak of the physicality that always lingers between them.
Indeed, the latter half of the film, wherein Verhoeven details how most/all of Eric's pathologies deride from the absence of his ex-wife, lead into a tender portrayal of desire as a psychological need. The last fifteen minutes especially turn this from a dark comedy into a tale of haunting introspection, when Olga’s health is threatened and Eric finally becomes the man she has always wanted him to be. Moreover, the ending works as a powerful parallel to her father’s passing, and Verhoeven handles it all delicately and develops it beautifully.

A wonderful score and film, Turkish Delight is always vibrant and alive.

Turkish Delight: 10/10