Tendre gang

A former jailbird that demands to listen to some Muddy Waters in order to perform well in a soft core movie. A prostitute that states that the revolution is being forcible entered into. A girl that hangs out with some strange characters that might be informants. A new-wave styled small time conman. And a porn actress who is along for the ride. Whats common between those petty criminals? They all live in the outskirts of society, in a grotesque old mansion, doing small time crimes in order to survive, and killing time (extra curricular activities include sex, drugs and partying).Probably they are the most rock and roll gang in the history of Greek cinema, probably not.

Surely they are a posse of romantics waiting for reality to (brutally) come into their lives and exterminate them. A group of rebels without a hope, lovable criminals an cult heroes...probably one of the most beautiful gangland movies ever made. Hence the

I saw it 20 years ago in an Athenian open cinema.

It was stylised, yet fresh.

The music sticks with you as well.

Blue colours, petty criminals,impossible situations.

In a way, it is a bit like an 80s Greek version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The director went on to make remarkable films, but the language barrier means that they will never be widely-known.

I wish it came out on DVD. Unfortunately it's hard to find even in VHS format.

Nikolaidis is definitely a unique artist with vision, obsessions and all those sweet little (or big) things that can make a human a true artist.

The film's mentality is a bit Greek/mediterranean I suppose, but it think that won't prevent open-mind viewers from getting Nikolaidis point.

This quite big film (154 min) is a dialog based paranoia, mostly because of its surreal scenery, not in the matter of weird / surreal visuals but mainly because of photography, Athens superb 1983's landscapes, the "sweet bunch's" very unusual retro house-decoration and last but not least, the hilarious surreal dialogue & the humouristic element in various degrees.

Anyway, I am just writing here because yesterday I saw "Singapore Sling" another Nikolaidis classic which rocks, which is more known abroad, since I even saw comments from non-greeks here in IMDb. Since Singapore Sling has few but intensely positive reviews from non-greeks, you might as well want to check "Sweet bunch", so it might worth it trying to spot this, or any Nikolaidis picture for this matter. Just note that it doesn't get any close to Singapore Sling in matters of extremity or bold visuals, far from it...

Greek viewers will probably know this title. If you're not familiar with Nikolaidis, it's a nice place to start!