In this early effort from Danish director Paul Verhoeven ("RoboCop"), the director engages in his love of melodrama and genre conventions, as well as his even greater love of undermining these elements. The film consists of a deep-seated tension between the filthy and the sweet; it's a crude and scatological love story between a vulgar artist (Rutger Hauer) and the girl he's obsessed with (Monique van de Ven). Verhoeven is, as always, very interested in the physical and the visceral, and the film is saturated in bodily fluids and naked flesh. Love, in this film, is not an abstract concept but a physical, visual one, and the love scenes have a startling tenderness and realism, especially in the context of the darker undertones also running through the film. There are many beautiful and touching scenes, like the one where an argument between the lovers turns into a reconciliation in the middle of a downpour, or the way that Verhoeven outdoes the traditional romantic comedies he's parodying by filming perhaps the most gorgeous sunset-at-the-beach scene in cinema history. "Turkish Delight" is a complex film, always hard to pin down because it never quite settles into any one mode for very long. It's romantic, bitingly hilarious, satirical, touching, tragic, and brutal. It's a slap in the face to the idea of "tasteful" entertainment, a ferocious cry for the visceral and intense, rejecting bourgeoisie conventionality in favor of a wild, messy individuality that privileges emotions and in-the-moment living.