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 film is unfortunately like an extended edition of Loose Women. Loads of waffling, disagreements, precious little actual outcome. While it was nice to see some famous faces as I've never seen them before, the sheer boredom level is off the scale.

Five stars for this film of Nell Dunn's play set in an English council run Turkish bath on Women's day. There is some fine acting: Diana Dors steals the show of course for her sheer ability. Venessa Redgrave gives a stolid performance although there is nothing to stretch an actress of her abilities, and the rest of the cast give good performances. The whole film has an atmosphere of a BBC play for today and there is no real cinematic quality to the film as a whole. I really would not want to see this on the big screen. Perhaps this is due to the confines of the set: we see the plunge bath, steam room, hot room, exercise room, showers and rest room. And that's it. No exterior shots to establish the baths - all the action takes place in one location. The whole thing is simply a filmed play. Workmanlike but not inspired.The play however examines relationships between a number of women, mostly middle class.

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.

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.