One of Bertolucci's most sensual films, Besieged is also among his most chaste. Whereas the director's other work often deals explicitly with desire and power, this lean, elegant film (which has origins in television) depicts a sexual tension that simmers beneath the surface-influencing the characters' actions but never dominating them. Instead, the two protagonists go about their solitary rituals, occasionally interacting, but more often quietly stealing glances. Thandie Newton plays Shandurai, a young African exile in Rome who supports her medical studies as a live-in housemaid for pianist Jason Kinsky (David Thewlis). Kinsky pursues Shandurai, but she demurs-being haunted by her past in Africa, which includes the political imprisonment of her husband. The film devotes little time to dialogue, instead finding beauty in music and movement, most seductively in Shandurai's private moments in her apartment: cooking and dancing to African pop music, her body slowly undulating in the steam-filled air.