Nazi_Fighter_David The story is so good and the acting so superior that the second half becomes much more than just an exploitation film… It begins with Eric, a sculptor and chronic woman-chaser, whose wife is dying of a brain tumor… Eric is so successful with the ladies that he begins collecting their hair, attaching it into his scrapbook… He comes across a striking redhead named Olga, whom he brutally seduces in the car... Instead of cutting her hair, he falls in love with her and chases her all over Holland… The treatment of sex is stimulating and humorous… It is not graphic, but the performers are quite active and the erotic encounters are exceptionally realistic… It moves quickly from reality to sexual fantasies combined with daydreams of killing, blood, and vengeance… Despite these outrageous displays, the movie is so full of life and powerful acting that it is more fascinating than repelling

tieman64 Regarded as the most successful Dutch film, "Turks Fruit" (Turkish Delight) is a melodramatic romantic-tragedy directed by Paul Verhoeven.Verhoeven is renowned for his frank and extreme depictions of sex and violence, and "Turks Fruit" is no different. Violence, feces, vomit and many other scenes that western audiences are sure to find challenging, are on frequent display, presented by Verhoeven in a very matter-of-fact style.But it never feels exploitative. If anything, it's funny to see Verhoeven sticking his camera wherever he pleases. His framing here is also different to his other films, the director adopting a highly free-form style of shooting, lots of hand-held camera work, no storyboarding, little rehearsal and a preference for early takes, all in an attempt to captures raw and spontaneous natural performances.The film's plot is really insignificant. It's the tale of an artist (Rutger Hauer) who has trouble dealing with his wife's (Monique van de Ven) selfish mother. This friction leads to an intense courting and marital relationship. Eventually husband and wife grow apart, only to be brought back together by the realisation that Monique has cancer. When his wife dies, Rutger Hauer walks sadly off into the sunset. It's an R rated take on Arthur Hiller's "Love Story".It's a trite story, but Verhoeven inserts some simple visual metaphors to elevate things. Artwork is compared to the passion of romance, whilst decay and maggots crop up again and again to highlight the cancerous way the couple's relationship gradually collapses. The film is constantly switching between two aesthetics: a colourful, pleasing palette (good times) and a really nasty griminess (bad times). 7.9/10- Worth watching once for its style, bombastic pace, catchy musical score, and some beautiful Dutch women. Rutger Hauer comes across as a sex starved brute, until the final act in which Verhoeven lingers on his sculptors and artwork, all of which feature pregnant women and babies. Poor Rutger only wanted a family.

Framescourer A relative of the earlier Lovestory (1970) - complete with sine qua non bittersweet denouement - Turkish Delight's dramatic device is a wrong-side-of-the-tracks match. Rutger Hauer's virile, semi-feral sculptor Erik falls for a similarly carefree Hippie in Monique van de Ven's Olga. Their unstoppable union has to negotiate the barely tacit disapproval of her bourgeois parents.What's interesting here though is that Verhoeven takes great care to neither judge characters nor cast them as straightforward pro- or an-tagonists. The couple's raw youth is magnetic (there are a number of stunts patently performed without doubles) but their irreverence can occasionally be as awkward as it is entertaining. Similarly, the outwardly stuffy parents and their coterie have a (characteristically Dutch) tolerance for the brash, carefree couple. The heartrending close to the film comes not by cause of intractable opposition between the groups but as an example of their ultimate similarity despite it.Verhoeven uses Speed director Jan de Bont as his DoP. Their collaboration is a feast of (meticulously framed) perpetual motion and zest, the very equal of Hauer's reeling id-boy. But it's not just a document of raucous youth getting it on. Verhoeven catches all the beauty and pathos of Dutch lovers caught in the post-60s cul-de-sac. 7/10

erwan_ticheler "Turks Fruit",based on the novel written by the legendary Dutch writer Jan Wolkers,is a true Dutch classic. That doesn't mean that much since my country isn't a major player in World cinema.Yet this film is very good and very famous.It was voted the best Dutch film ever a few years ago when a national poll was held in Holland.It's tough to agree with that,since I haven't seen all the classics but it's right up there,that much is true.The sex and dirty images of poo are not for everyone to see,yet it is essential to the free culture of Amsterdam in the 1970's.Amsterdam was the center of the world in the 70's,so my mother told me. That was probably the reason why she left France (she is French) and came to Amsterdam."Turks Fruit" shows a very poignant picture of the city at that time and the sexual liberation of them days.The directing by the,at that time,young Paul Verhoeven is splendid and it's no mystery why he left Holland to go to Hollywood.His talents are clear but another reason was that he was misunderstood in Holland so he said himself.The camera work is great,but that's no surprise since it's done by one of the greatest cameramen Jan de Bont (who became famous in the 90's with his action classics "Speed" and "Twister",especially "Speed" show the superb talents of de Bont when it comes to camera work).The film also launched the careers of Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven. Van de Ven stayed in Holland,playing in some of the best Dutch films and Hauer went to Hollywood and gained cult fame when he starred in "Blade Runner",a terrific performance by Hauer.Verhoeven and Hauer would team up again 4 years later to make the Dutch war classic "Soldaat van Oranje"."Turks Fruit" is truly the epitome of 70's Dutch cinema with it's liberated sex approach that would echo in several other Dutch films in the 70's and 80's.Very important for Holland but maybe too much for the rest of the world,especially for the rather prudish Hollywood.Essential viewing though for everyone who wants to know something about the Dutch cinema. 8/10