Mikres Afrodites

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.

First, a confession - I was ready to like this film even before I saw it, because it was based on a classical text set in Greece ("Chloe and Dafnis", an early romance). What I wasn't ready for was the frank exploration of attraction, sex and perceived self-worth that this film offers. Imagine if someone was able to capture the essence of the mating ritual, stripped of nearly all its cultural clutter. That is what this film does, and in hauntingly beautiful tableaux vivants.

What happens in the film? Well, the film opens in the distant past, as group of shepherds arrive at a new location to water their animals. On arrival, a young boy finds a local girl fishing and begins a tentative courtship. At the same time, an older shepherd does the same with a bird-catcher. But who is falling into whose nets? As we watch both couples, a series of themes are presented. Why are we aggressive in love? What do we understand of the engines of attraction? Can we ever come to know one another, or are we always strangers wandering? This film, shot in the early 1960s, gives its viewers questions that are far more modern than expected, and yet as old as the subject itself. This is a love story, provided that you understand that love is an absolutely unfathomable mystery.

Okay - I'm a USAian, and not particularly ashamed of it. I like my movies with characters I can care about, a story that interests me, filmed in a visually pleasing fashion.

The B&W photography was okay - some good scenery, some solid storytelling, but several shots either poorly framed, or in such close-up that it was hard to tell what was being shown - or why.

The characters were, I'm afraid, little more than cardboard cutouts - the young girl who showed much skin, even more indecision about the boy who she fascinated, and a remarkable lack of background or depth. The love/lust-crazed adult shepherd and his paramour, the wife of an absent fisherman - the story they told can be seen in almost any cheap neighborhood bar almost every week - and seeing the couple in the bar will give you more insight into why they're doing this dance than this movie will.

The older, bullying boy remained a cipher. The crutch-using leader, the other shepherds, the rest of the fisher-folk village - either didn't get enough screen time to fill out their characters, or too much screen time for the set-dressing they were. The primitive instruments and folk dances were interesting, but took away from the story rather than adding to it - the right television commercials would have fit in better with the story.

A side note to European filmmakers - symbology is representative. Symbols can be a marvelous way to enhance storytelling, but they are never, in themselves, the story.

I'll give it a 4 for visual interest and the bit of dramatic tension that was achieved, and remain mystified as to why anyone would consider this masterful film-making. I guess I'm just a Philistine.

The filming locations are gorgeous. The production design is lovely, though superficially minimal, and the costume design is outstanding. Giannis Markopoulos' original score is beautiful, yet notably relatively sparse as it is employed. Somewhat echoing these facets, most surprising is how very loose, unbothered, and slight the title seems to be in many regards. There is a discrete story being told, but it often feels like a conveyance only of big ideas, essential beats, rather than a detailed delineation of a course of events. Nikos Koundouros' direction likewise seems to be focused on major feelings and concepts for each scene rather than firm guidance of the narrative - less a guardrail along a highway, and more like sparing cairns that dot a remote hiking trail. Surely enough, 'Young Aphrodites' could be described as a drama, or a romance film, if one wishes to put labels on it; a "historical" descriptor is also theoretically applicable. Above all, though, it rather comes across as an art film, with a mind emphatically toward aesthetics more than anything else.

The latter slant is especially accentuated in the relatively little dialogue that is employed, mostly letting scenes speak for themselves, and the quasi-amorphousness that characterizes the dialogue we do get. Characters, as written, feel more like sketches, as do scenes and even the tale at large, and Koundouros seems to orchestrate shots and scenes with the very same mindset. I don't know what it was that I expected before I sat to watch, but it wasn't this. Such as it is, however, I think the movie is superb - crafted with tremendous care and passion, and shaped just as much with an ethos of restraint and deliberation. Giovanni Varriano's cinematography is arguably most fetching of all, coming off as very fluid and natural - which, come to think of it, might be the best word to apply to 'Young Aphrodites' overall. Though bound up with specific sensibilities of film-making and storytelling, in some capacity this feels like a treatment of the bare essence of humanity at a particular time and place, without all the enormity of civilization and culture informing events. Whatever else is true of the feature, I appreciate the tack it has taken, and the commitment to it of everyone involved.

Though bearing recognizable flavors, this is the type of movie in which those flavors are reduced to their simplest form, and approached somewhat obliquely. It's a lot to take in at first, and I can't blame anyone who sits to watch and has a hard time engaging with it. Yet for whatever ways in which it's well removed from the usual conventions of cinema as general audiences see it, it's very well made, with strong acting on top, not least from Eleni Prokopiou with the sharp nuance and personality that defines her performance, and young Kleopatra Rota. Despite all the idiosyncrasies, ninety minutes fly by unexpectedly quickly, and the result is a rich, absorbing viewing experience, one in which the origins in classical literature can be easily discerned. Content warnings are necessary for animal cruelty, and elements of sexual violence - but provided that these in and of themselves are no obstacle to one watching a film, and one is open to the more artistic nature of the presentation, I'd have no qualms recommending this to just about anyone. For everything that 'Young Aphrodites' is and represents, it's an engrossing, compelling picture, and ultimately highly satisfying. So far as I'm concerned, if you have the chance to check it out then this is well worth one's time.

I bought "Young Aphrodites" on videotape from Movies Unlimited several years ago. Atmy first viewing I was enchanted. Eventually I watched it so many times over the following years that I wore it out. The two youngsters (the boy sheepherder and the village girl who interests him) are the main story. Also, there is a story of an adult couple. The passionate pursuit of the bird tamer (young woman) by the shepherd (young man) and the sexual consummation of that pursuit colors the story of the boy and girl. A dead pelican? seems to be the unusual center of the boy's attempts to interest the girl. Not entirely sure why he is pursuing the girl (but having an idea from having stumbled on the sexual encounter of the older couple, he invests her with an innocence only to find that he has a rival in the form of another boy. This boy sees the girl as a sexual conquest. The rivalry, the innocent pursuit and its shattering resolution end the main story and the sheepherders return home.