Cast overview: | |||
Eleni Prokopiou | ... | Arta | |
Takis Emmanuel | ... | Tsakalos | |
Kleopatra Rota | ... | Chloe | |
Vangelis Ioannidis | ... | Skymnos | |
Zannino | ... | Molossos (as Giannis Zannino) | |
Anestis Vlahos | ... | Erster Hirte | |
Kostas Papakonstantinou | ... | Lykas | |
Vasilis Kailas | ... | (as Vasilakis Kailas) | |
Stathis Giallelis |
Parallel stories of Eros set in 200 B.C. Nomadic shepherds, plagued by drought, happen on a fishing encampment with plentiful fresh water. The local men are away but will return when it rains; the shepherds stay to refresh their flock until the rain comes. A shepherd lad and a local girl, both on the verge of puberty, start a mating dance. Also, one of the shepherds approaches a beautiful local woman, inviting her to sleep with him. How will she respond? She's married, her husband at sea for the week. Is love forever or temporary? A subtext dramatizes the capture of fish, birds, foxes, and other animals: their fates seem arbitrary. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
This Greek film was obviously marketed as a piece of soft-core porn about nubile young Greeks getting it off when, in fact, it's a reasonably serious, and incredibly boring, account of ancient Greek shepherds struggling to survive or at least cope with a lack of water, which may or may not be symbolic.
The "Young Aphrodites" of the title are rather comely maidens and certainly not the type to entice you into the porn cinemas of Soho or should that be downtown Athens and yet I am sure this is just the kind of 'art-house' movie that once upon a time was squarely aimed at what was affectionately known as 'the dirty mac brigade', at least here in the UK, (and if that were the case, they would have been severely disappointed).
There isn't much of a plot, (there isn't much of anything really), but at least it nicely shot in black and white and has an easy-on-the-ear score by Yannis Markopoulous. Still, I can't imagine when this was being made who the producers imagined their intended audience might be or that it won the Best Director prize at the Berlin Film Festival. I gave up before the end.