Harem Suare

Ozpetek's follow-up to The Turkish Bath is a murky historical drama slithering about the political and emotional convolutions of life in the Sultan's harem during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, as recounted (get this) to Valeria Golino at a train station by an old woman who was there. It looks a million (at least, the costume budget does), but the human relations are too vague and diffused to hold the centre, and the sense of bygone traditions and practices is shallow, certainly compared to similar treatments in The Silences of the Palace and Raise the Red Lantern.