Ferzan Özpetek’s feature film Hamam aka  [Steam: The Turkish Bath] in 1997 is one of those movie-making debuts that stick in your memory.  In it, Özpetek takes a mesmerizing look at how special places and people can transform other people. This romantic drama film is a haunting joy

Since then this Italian/Turkish queer filmmaker has made a whole slew of great films …..including another favorite of Queerguru: Loose Cannons.

Now his latest film Nuovo Olimpo about a passionate queer relationship spread over some 30 years as it struggles to fulfill its potential.  It starts in the mid-70s in an Italian movie theater where gay men go to cruise each other and rarely watch a film. It is where one night Enea (Damiano Gavinoa) a film student has an immediate attraction to shy closeted Pietro (Andrea Di Luigi) a medical student. As Pietro is reluctant to make out in the theater’s bathroom, they make a date to spend a night in a friend’s unoccupied apartment.

Özpetek’s camera captures the sheer sexual energy and physical passion of the men’s lovemaking which adds such authenticity to the love affair they are about to embark on.  However the next day on the way to meet each other, an anti-fascist protest in the city turns into a violent riot and neither manages to make it to their date.  As they hadn’t yet exchanged phone numbers there was no way to connect with each other,

Fast forward 10 years and both men have successful careers but Pietro’s attempt to track down Enea, now a famous filmmaker, comes to no avail.  But Özpetek shows that even with their very separate lives, both of the two men still regard each other as the one big love of their lives.  There have been other different physical near-misses over the years, and over all that time the audience finds themselves getting so committed to the happy-ever-after ending that Pietro and Enea deserve.

Now it is 2015  and Enea is harmed in an accident as he is shooting his 14th film. Unwittingly he is taken to the hospital where Pietto works although this reunion is hardly one could predict…. as we couldn’t in its outcome too.

The film is semi-autobiographical, with elements of the story being taken from writer and director Ferzan Özpetek‘s own life and career. This fact alone makes it a contributing factor to the sheer authenticity of one of the best queer romances this year.

 

 

 

Review : Roger Walker-Dack

Editor in Chief : Queerguru 
Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT 
Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributing Editor The Gay Uk &Contributor Edge Media 
Former CEO and Menswear Designer of  Roger Dack Ltd in the UK    
one of the hardest-working journalists in the business' Michael Goff of Towleroad