romanticism, clichés, a dramatic-pink story about a fictional Ottoman Empire. and decent performances. it is enough for the success of a film who preserves more the air of "80țs cinema than the traces of the stories about harem created by foreign visitors. sure, it is a nice film. sure, it is part of a long series of films recreating the past in nice frames. and, more important, it is a good occasion for admire the right actors, in the right roles, doing the expected performances. so, Harem.

a chain of nice clichés. but interesting for cast, clash between civilizations, romanticism ,atmosphere and the remember of a lot of sweet legends about Middle East. the performance of Art Malik is really interesting. the presence of Ava Gardner in a cold role - almost seductive. Omar Shariff, as fictive sultan , does his ordinary role in exotic B film. but the great virtue of film is to present the spirit of "80's. the glamor, the ambiguous lights, the soap opera potential, the life as dream, the love as large circle. the second virtue - the atmosphere from Arabian Nights with precise number of drops from freedom, condition of woman in Orient at the beginning of century and flavor or rare images. a film who could be more than easy delight. but a letter from far land of memory.

Harems were clearly in vogue in the mid eighties. First we had the feature film "Harem" from 1985, starring Ben Kingsley as a lascivious oriental potentate and Nastassja Kinski as the young American woman who is kidnapped and forced to become a member of his harem. And then we had the mini-series "Harem" from 1986, starring Omar Sharif as a lascivious oriental potentate and Nancy Travis as the young American woman who is kidnapped and forced to become a member of his harem. (Although this latter version was originally made as a three-hour TV mini-series, it is today being sold as a film on DVD, the only clue to its origins being the words "Length: 183 minutes" in very small print.)The main difference between the two is that whereas Miss Kinski's character is a modern-day New Yorker, the 1986 film is set in the Edwardian era and the heroine, Jessica Gray, is the Florida-born fiancée of Charles, a British diplomat. (He is called "Charles" in the film itself, but both the blurb on the back of the DVD case and the IMDb cast-list identify him as "Forest". Perhaps the film-makers realised that this is an American Christian name rarely used in Britain). Jessica travels with Charles/Forest to his latest posting in the Ottoman Empire, where they intend to marry, but before the wedding can take place she is kidnapped and sold to the Sultan. Once in the harem she is befriended by Usta, an attractive older woman, but attracts the dangerous jealousy of the Kadin, the Sultan's only legal wife and the mother of his heir. An added complication is that Jessica finds herself falling for Tarik Pasha, the handsome leader of a group of rebels fighting to overthrow the Sultan's despotic government. (The film was very loosely inspired by the Young Turk revolution of 1908).Although this film is supposedly set in Ottoman Turkey, the scriptwriters and film-makers obviously had very little knowledge of the history, geography or demography of the Ottoman Empire. They evidently subscribed to the folk-belief that the entire Islamic world is one vast desert, so we see lots of sand, palm trees, camels and people wearing long robes and fezzes in order to establish a generic "Middle Eastern" atmosphere, even though Istanbul, where the film is mostly set, is not in a desert or anywhere near one. The revolutionary leader Tarik does not look Turkish at all, which is not surprising as he is played by the Pakistani-born Art Malik. Omar Sharif bears little resemblance to Abdul Hamid II, the real Turkish Sultan at this period.The British authorities seem strangely supine and unwilling to take action to rescue Jessica, even though this was the golden age of gunboat diplomacy; the excuse given by the British Ambassador is that Turkey controls Britain's passage to India. (In reality Britain's passage to India lay through the Suez Canal, under joint Anglo-French control). I suspect that if in real life a foreign ruler had dared kidnap the fiancée of a British diplomat the British Government would have sent the Royal Navy to demand her release. If the young lady happened to be an American citizen, Teddy Roosevelt would probably have sent the US Navy along as well. Nancy Travis is pretty enough in a Barbie Doll sort of way, but I doubt if any Sultan would have found her irresistibly beautiful enough to make it worth his while to risk war with the two major powers of the age.The acting here is of a low standard throughout, with most of the cast giving one-dimensional performances based upon some of the acting profession's stock clichés. I was surprised to see stars of the calibre of Omar Sharif and Ava Gardner appearing in trash like this. (They had previously appeared together in "Mayerling", a rather dull film but far better than "Harem". In that film too they played royalty, although there Gardner played Sharif's mother rather than his wife). This was to be Gardner's last screen performance, but I doubt if it is one that she would have wanted to be remembered by. The worst offender is the wooden, emotionless Travis; if the rest of the cast give one-dimensional performances, hers is zero-dimensional.Apart from the title and the similarities in plot, the other thing which the two "Harems" have in common is that both are absolute rubbish. What I disliked most about the mini-series was neither its manifold inaccuracies nor the inadequate acting but rather the way in which it tried to peddle for our entertainment outdated Western sexual fantasies about the Orient. It resembled nothing so much as a softcore porn movie with all the actual sex scenes cut out. Apparently marriage in the West is all about equal love and respect, whereas in the East it is all about the woman learning how to please the man sexually. (There is even an attempt to suggest that the latter ideal is preferable to the first). Men all yearn for a harem full of beautiful, complaisant women. (Probably bisexual- there are strong lesbian overtones to the friendship between Jessica and Usta, although nothing is made explicit). Women all yearn to be swept off their feet by an Arab (or Turkish, or Pakistani) sheikh on a white horse- an idea that was corny even in Valentino's day. Jessica falls in love with Tarik even though he was the one who kidnapped her in the first place.Remarkably, the makers of "Harem" were expecting us to take all this nonsense seriously as late as 1986. Even more remarkably, some people still do as late as 2008. (Nearly a quarter of those voting have given it 10/10). My vote, however, is 2/10

When I heard that Nancy Travis, who played across Mike Myers in "So I Married an Axe Murderer," and Art Malik, who played the heavy in "True Lies," were the romantic leads in this 1980s TV drama, I knew it was something I had to see. In its ludicrous, Reagan-era soap operatic way, it's an entertaining little gem, filled with delightfully cringe-inducing lines like, "Because you don't have a woman's heart!"It's also a compendium of just about every cliché known to man, from the freedom-loving American ingénue who shoots like Annie Oakley, to the stuffy Victorian aunt, to the student revolutionary who jumps on soapboxes at every opportunity, to the uber-Orientalist portrayal of the harem with all its poisonous plots and sexy belly dancers. It's set back around 1907 in the Ottoman Empire, and the story, such as it is, involves the adventures of a blond, dewy-eyed American girl named Jessica (Travis) who goes to Turkey with her proper and equally blond English fiancée (Julian Sands), and gets kidnapped. Inevitably, she ends up in a harem, fending off the advances of a besotted sultan (Omar Sharif), and the wicked intrigues of his chief wife (Ava Gardner, channeling the stepmother from "Snow White"). Although the sultan is awfully keen on her, Jessica falls in love with the leader of the revolutionary movement, Tarik Pasha- who is played with a completely straight face by Art Malik.The whole story unfolds like a dime store novel, which I suppose is appropriate given the setting, and even though it's as preposterous as the average episode of the old Zorro TV show, it's still a lot of fun. The whole premise of the show, with its emphasis on the tyrannized and barbarous East, would probably give old Edward Said fits, but it's notable for the fact that it has good Turks alongside its bad, and that it has a genuine Muslim actor as the hero. There's quite a few hot Middle Eastern and South Asian guys running around in this, and Art Malik is surprisingly appealing (and gorgeous) as the idealistic young Turkish hothead. There are also plenty of beautiful location shots in the old Moorish mosques and palaces in Granada and Cordoba, and in Morocco as well, although the director seemed to forget that the Sahara desert is nowhere near Turkey.It's actually comparable to "The Lady and the Highwayman," another kitschy, lavishly produced '80s period soap, although unlike "Lady," "Harem" does not have Hugh Grant and was never released to DVD. However, it's definitely worth a watch if you don't mind your entertainment on the corny side. Even though I was groaning at many of the plot twists and dialogue, I would happily watch it again.