In the opening sequence of Ferzan Özpetek's latest film, "Red Istanbul," a film director welcomes his old friend, a writer living in London, to his Istanbul seaside mansion. The strange and muted tension between these two men, both in their 40s, provides an unsettling entry into a film whose wayward plot carries strong echoes of "L'Avventura," the masterpiece of Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni whose legacy Özpetek rediscovers here in perhaps the subtlest film of his career.Deniz, the film director played superbly by Nejat İşler, soon disappears, but not before taking his writer friend Orhan, who had been reading his fictionalized memoirs with an eye to helping with its edits, for a ride. Deniz introduces him to Neval (Tuba Büyüküstün), one of his closest friends, who plays a substantial part in his book and is thus already familiar to Orhan, albeit in fictionalized form. Together they visit a party at Sapphire, one Istanbul's most glamorous skyscrapers, where an international group of posh partygoers are having a good time.Halit Ergenç and Tuba Büyüküstün share the leading roles in the film.Özpetek's camera focuses on Gaye Su Akyol, the "it girl" of Turkey's music scene today, who performs her song "Red Dreams" in a characteristically enigmatic manner. Soon, the camera travels outside the flat and the director cuts to a drone view that places the skyscraper into perspective. We hear the call to prayer and see the dark outlines of Istanbul buildings that surround the bubble of wealth and privilege.Contrasts are subtly drawn in this film, and it is easy to miss the dividing line between glamour and poverty and fact and fiction. The after hours party is followed by a scene in a working class meyhane (traditional Turkish bar) where the manipulative nature of Deniz's remembrance of things past adds to the confusion of Orhan and the viewer.Orhan admits to lacking will power. Initially, he appears as a teetotaller, having experienced a traumatic event in his youth. But he quickly adapts to Deniz's regime of binge drinking. He dozes off as they watch the amazing view of the Bosporus from the mansion. The next morning, when Deniz disappears into thin air, Orhan feels guilty for having returned to drinking.Ferzan Özpetek has adapted the scenario from his own book with the same title. He shot the film in Istanbul after a three-year preparation with scriptwriting, translation and casting.In Antonioni's 1960 film "L'Avventura," the disappearance of a woman leads her lover and best friend to have an adventure around Italy's Aeolian Islands. We never learn what has happened to the missing woman. With her absence, she sets things into motion: A love affair begins between the duo as they try to locate her. Özpetek uses the same formula here. The longer Deniz remains absent, the more strongly his legacy is felt in the film. There is great pleasure in experiencing the unfolding of the mystery of his absence.Cinematographer Gian Luigi Corticelli has produced an image of Istanbul that is reminiscent of Orhan Pamuk's novel "The Black Book." Dark and filled with ghosts of the past, the city provides the background of a detective story of sorts. Since his friend disappears within hours of his arrival in Istanbul, following a 20-year-long absence, Orhan becomes the chief suspect in the ongoing police investigation. There are nightmarish scenes concerning his psychological tribulations: The mansion is too close to the real heart of the city, the Bosporus, to let him have a peaceful sleep.Özpetek proves himself to be a master character-builder. Yusuf, the tragic hero of the film, melts down before our eyes as he struggles with his numerous traumas. The dynamic between Orhan and Neval is a pleasure to watch: Their gestures and silences subtly reveal their muted feelings towards each other. Secondary characters in the film, too, are tastefully conceived. The small army of Deniz's relatives, household staff and assistants (Serra Yılmaz, Ayten Gökçer, Zerrin Tekindor and Yelin Bilgin) help produce some of the most entertaining scenes of this unsettling drama.Most Turkish critics have panned "Red Istanbul" largely because of what they consider to be its "soap opera aesthetics." Since many of the actors in this film are known for their roles in television dramas, the argument goes that Özpetek's work is better suited for the small screen and can only be considered as lowbrow art. But this view shows a lack of understanding about the aesthetics of modernism in general and Antonioni, the master of modernist cinema, in particular. In his "L'Avventura," the close-ups of actors closely resemble the photo-novels of populist magazines. Many film scholars agree that Antonioni's film owes its magnificence precisely to that intermingling of modernist and populist sensibilities. The late Umberto Eco used to love this film, but so too could a fan of photo-novels with no scholarly interests. In "Red Istanbul," Özpetek pays a delightful homage to the type of modernism Italian filmmakers like Antonioni and Fellini have mastered. The power of the film lies in its intermingling of different narrative sensibilities and techniques, which requires the self-assurance of an auteur director.