In this quiet, resonating art piece, celebrated director Bernardo Bertolucci explores the transcendent power of love and presents an epic story in the scale of an intimate drama.

His film opens with Shandurai (Thandie Newton), witnessing the capture of her husband in an unnamed African nation. Distraught and frightened, the young woman screams and convulses in her sleep, and suddenly, we find that she is in Rome, living in a cavernous house by the famed Spanish Steps, servant to an eccentric British pianist whom she refers to as Mr Kinsky (David Thewlis). The distance between these two individuals is great. Coming from different backgrounds, immersed in different cultures, they are two souls sharing one space, yet never fully inhabiting it. Shandurai attends medical school by day, where a gay classmate, Agostino (Claudio Santamaria), is besotted with her and is willing to turn straight just to sleep with her. She playfully rebuffs him, but keeps him as a friend because of her loneliness. At home, she cleans dozens of antiques and art pieces, all bequeathed to Kinsky by a rich aunt, and gyrates to tribal-sounding music while in a far away corner of the house, Kinsky quietly, ardently woos her with his classical pieces, lovingly played on his prized piano, his only means of communication. Unable to deny nor successfully express his feelings, he suddenly embraces her, declaring his love, and in her surprise, Shandurai lashes out at him, belittling his devotion, telling him to free her husband to prove his love. Gradually, she begins to notice that all the precious pieces of art in his house are disappearing, and with each vanishing object, she finds herself being drawn to her silent employer, guessing that he is selling them for some secret mission. When Kinsky parts with his beloved piano, Shandurai finally realizes that he has sacrificed all he owns in order to grant her wish - by then, however, it no longer matters because she has fallen in love with him.

Tiny in scope, yet gigantic in its aspirations, "Besieged" is the most passionate film I've seen in a long long time. Although there's hardly any dialogue in the film, what is left unsaid by all the characters truly speaks volumes about them. This effect is magnificently realized through Bertolucci's masterful telling of the story from a script he wrote with Clare Peploe, itself derived from the short story, "The Siege". Eschewing his more showy technique and framing his film in small, confined quarters, he skilfully elicits all the right responses from his audience from this deceptively simple tale of highly complex people. There's an urgent sense of intimacy, similar to that found in his previous works, "Stealing Beauty" and "Last Tango in Paris", and none of the cold, aloof polish of "The Sheltering Sky" and "The Last Emperor", where visual splendour substituted for human emotions.

Bertolucci's handling of his cast is also superb. Thandie Newton, who's been tipped for stardom for almost a decade now, registers another fine performance in this film, reminiscent of the work she did in the unjustly overlooked "The Journey of August King". Her interaction with David Thewlis is extraordinary. Thewlis, an enigmatic presence in Mike Leigh's films, here transforms himself into a full blown romantic hero with a restrained, amusing and heartbreaking performance. Rounding out the cast is Italian actor, Claudio Santamaria, whose scenes inject sudden jolts of kinetic energy to the proceedings, and who is often a welcome sight.

By the time "Besieged" comes to its bittersweet denouement, it's already taken its audience from the depths of the African heartland, to the tourist-infested streets of Rome, and straight into the hearts of an Englishman whose shy exterior hides a fiery passion, and the determined woman whose love he has won by giving up all that he has. Excellent filmmaking!

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