Steaming

Patti Love's often unbearable performance, during the first two acts of «Steaming», almost ruins Joseph Losey's final film. Nell Dunn's play decidedly must work much better on a theater stage, where the distance between the audience and the play being performed, where the sort of single frame with the same size and same gaze position that becomes the stage, and where the direct voices coming directly from actors' bodies, create conditions that make us take some poetic intimacy in the midst of the prosaic rawness of the representation, and make more tolerable sudden outbursts of intense drama out of the blue, for the simple fact of being in front of a live performances. As captured by a camera, and as set up in shots of different scales and angles, in an almost pointless intent to give some kinetic life to what is, in the end, nothing more than the filmization of a theater piece, it only stresses the artificiality of what we are watching. In compensation for this strange kind of cinematic product, there are fine and controlled performances by Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, and Brenda Bruce as clients, and Diana Dors (in her last film) as manager of an old Turkish bath in London, where regular female customers meet and exchange facts about their lives, in spite of their class differences. Love, as an amoral stripper addicted to brute men, and Felicity Dean as Bruce's teenage (and apparently mentally ill) daughter are in charge of the hysterical scenes. There is not much going on in Aristotelian terms: this is more a confessional kind of drama, where stories, emotions and morals are shared. Only when Dors breaks down as she informs that the bath is going to be demolished for the construction of an entertainment center (or mall), the action follows a more traditional structure. According to drama conventions, it is Love's Josie, the character whose change is more significant. Her performance is built on scenes where she delivers diatribes of social resentment, sexual gossips, and screeching, until the moment her character becomes the spokesperson of the group and the tone changes. In any case, even when the sense of human existence is often crushed, there is a positive and joyful sense of life that, besides the opportunity of seeing women interacting (and such a good cast playing them), makes the viewing rather amenable. It is also a respectable ending for the careers of a remarkable director, and of cinematographer Christopher Challis, both taking good advantage of the single set.

This is an extremely unambitious film.Strange film for Losey to end his career on.Also rather ssdly the end for Diana Dors.She actually looks much better than in previous films where she looked blousy and overweight.Vanessa Redgrave looks like a fish out of water.

I'm a big fan of director Joseph Losey, and over the last year I've managed to watch all his movies. But I came to this one, his last, with very low expectations. He was in his eighties, after all, and ratings for Steaming are low.

But...what a delight this movie turned out to be! I found myself slowly but surely drawn into the special world of camaraderie that develops between the characters, and deeply caring about the outcome of the story. (Can the baths, the special place where they all come together, be saved from demolition?)

This is essentially a filmed stage play, yes, but Losey came from a theatrical background (he worked with Brecht way back when), and this movie never feels stage-bound or claustrophobic. Indeed, toward the end of the film, when an important action takes place "off-stage," the logic of never leaving the baths becomes manifest; this is a story that needs to take place over time but in a single location.

Vanessa Redgrave is great as always, and Sarah Miles naked is a revelation, but it's an actress named Patti Love who steals the movie in a dynamite role which she also played in the West End. (She seems to be the only hold-over from the original stage production.) You will not soon forget her.

Special kudos to the simple but exhilarating electronic music score, which has aged almost as nicely as the women in this movie.

While this is not a real great piece of film making, I found it to be erotic in a very subtle sort of way. First, the whole concept of a movie about 40ish and 50ish women hanging out (in more ways than one) at spa is very exciting to me. Then add the fact that we have established actresses like Sarah Miles and Vanessa Redgrave spending a lot of time lying around in towels and less and you have a very erotic film in my opinion. I really hated to see it end. If you find this concept much more sexy that overt sexuality, then you might want to check out this film. It's hard to find, though. I found it in a small independent video store in 1987 and haven't come across it since.

I probably would have never seen this movie if it were not for the fact that I was offered the part of Josie in the stage version. My husband and I sat down to review the film to help me decide if I would venture into my first role with nude scenes. I was partially happy with the film's adaptation and loved the performances. This is a chatty film, perhaps a little too much like the stage version, and the sets (though appropriately drab) could have been spiced up a little. Surprisingly this is not a sexy film at all (not completely devoid of charm and cuteness, the women are on the downhill side of middle age and their personalities only increase their speed down the hill.) I had read some lesbian or bi-sexual overtones into the script that don't translate well in this film. The director could have had the characters more nurturing and gentle with each other in massaging or bathing (unfortunately the film was made in the eighties not the nineties). Influenced by the film, I accepted the stage role. It's the only film I ever saw that influenced me to disrobe in front of family, friends, neighbors, and strangers so that must count for something.