Harem

1985 • 113 minutes

About this movie

Nastassja Kinski and Ben Kingsley are hard-put to bring life into this beautifully photographed but underscripted romantic drama. Diane (Kinski ) is a sophisticated trainee on the New York Stock Exchange who is suddently kidnapped and held captive in a North African desert hideaway by Selim (Kingsley), an Arab mogul. In an interesting role reversal, Diane has no qualms about bedding down an attractive man, but Selim's harem is purely decorative -- he does not share her cavalier view of sexual relationships. The twist is that Selim is not really that bad -- in spite of the fact that he has kidnapped the girl, he actually feels compelled to uphold a time-honored tradition that he doesn't really believe. Selim is a connoisseur who desires to embrace the ways of the Western world.