This examination of exile looks at Greek-Turkish relations through the eyes of Fanis (Georges Corraface), who was separated from his grandfather, a spice merchant, when he and his Greek parents were deported from Istanbul in 1963. His grandfather’s surprise visit to Greece 35 years later sets Fanis, now a professor of astronomy, exploring a past that can never be fully recovered.
Fanis’ method of reconnecting is to cook for his estranged patriarch, and food is presented as a character in the spirit of crossover international films such as Babette’s Feast or Like Water for Chocolate. While the political significance of old Constantinople’s cuisine is hammered home thematically, the sensual pleasures never come alive, even as the worldly spice merchant mentors Fanis in the relationships between spice and a universal order.
It’s all very sentimental and, worse, the film’s diffuse structure lacks a strong arc. The atmosphere in each episodic memory is flat even as it strains for a dreamlike quality. Meanwhile, the dates and ages of the characters don’t always scan easily, which gets distracting. (It doesn’t help when the adult Fanis is reunited with his childhood love, played by Basak Köklükaya, a lovely actor who looks about 20 years his junior.) This Spice has noble ambitions but would have benefited from a lighter touch.