The Ottoman Lieutenant

Female lead has limited emotional range, and i don't quite see why an Icelandic actor with an accent was cast as an American. We have A LOT of American actresses with farbetter emotional range that could've served this movie well.

I really do like war scenes.. It does not matter if the genre is sci-fiction or history. Bullets, gun fires or lasers, big bombs... Blood. This is it. The interesting thing about this movie is you do not see these kind of scenes but at he end you feel like you've watched a killer one !

I'm not an emotional guy and truly hate romance but the amount of pink scenes got harmonized with history & war so professionally that one can not be bored during the movie.

To sum... must be watched.

While some reviewers cannot see beyond the work of the actors and director in a project, others pay to escape life and be immersed in a world we cannot otherwise visit. The Ottoman Lieutenant is a grand, sweeping movie that has war as its backdrop. This movie is not a documentary. The artists who worked to bring us this bit of fiction immersed themselves beautifully within the project, and their hard work stands out, much like the Merchant Ivory films. The movie itself does not ask for a review of its accuracy, it simply asks that we put aside the trappings of our present environment to imagine a different vista. If you are interested in enjoying beauty for its own sake, then you will enjoy this film. If you are still intent on reliving the atrocities of the past, then l suggest you stick to documentaries, and only those with which you wholeheartedly agree. - Chipper F. Xavier, Esq.

The core of this movie is a love story--and a very romantic, engaging one at that. Breathtaking cinematography and gripping storytelling make this an exceptionally watchable piece of filmmaking. The politics of World War I, the horrors of the Turkish collaboration with the Nazis and their genocidal treatment of the Armenians are merely used as a backdrop to show the effects of war on everyday human beings. Along with other reviewers, I found that Hera Hilmar's performance as an American missionary nurse in Turkey quirky and often unconvincing--even just the fact of her hair always hanging in her face as she ministers to wounded men being carried her way on stretchers. She does improve as the film goes on and pretty much redeems herself in a key scene near the end. This is a movie, not a history lesson, and as such it offers viewers much to savor and contemplate.

A war film. or a romantic one. each discovers what he want. and the only delicate aspect could be the unrealistic expectation. because it is less a political movie, it is less a pledge for a cause or the other but one of beautiful - bitter stories about people, emotions, contact between different worlds and the result of this meet. a film who preserves its noble intentions to the first scene to the last, against pathetic scenes and too many black/white perspective or too sentimental parts. but this does it touching. and, maybe, useful, remembering many other stories about same theme.