Besieged by Stephen Farber Bernardo Bertolucci has had a long career, during which he has always shown himself to be an intuitive filmmaker. Besieged is essentially a two-character story about a woman (Thandie Newton) who flees her homeland in Africa and settles in Rome, where she works for an eccentric English pianist (David Thewlis) who becomes infatuated with her. The story is told in a purely cinematic language; there's very little dialogue, and some viewers may find themselves wishing there were more verbal exposition, particularly regarding the Englishman's background. But Bertolucci creates drama through his images, beginning with the opening scenes in Africa, which do an electrifying job of evoking the mood of a country under siege, and continuing in scenes that succinctly capture Newton's malaise in her alien new surroundings. If visual eloquence is one of Bertolucci's hallmarks, eroticism is the other, and this film has plenty of subdued sensuality. There's unexpected chemistry between the two stars. I say unexpected because Thewlis (best known as the scurrilous antihero of Mike Leigh's Naked) is not an actor I would have envisioned as a romantic figure. But he's photographed very well here, and he conveys a gentleness that is deeply attractive. The movie builds to a sexual interlude that is obliquely but brilliantly handled, and the ending that follows packs a dramatic wallop. Unlike Bertolucci's epic movies, this one has the texture of an exquisite short story. It's heartening to see a director of his stature taking on a small-scale film and bringing it off. (While his last film, Stealing Beauty, was also a modest, often evocative effort, Besieged succeeds more triumphantly.) A lot of self-important auteurs would do well to study his example. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum.