A self-important theatre director is in serious debt and consequently in financial need of his successful artist wife whom he is being unfaithful to (again) with a new dancer discovery of his. In turn the dancer's friend's gym boss is in love with the rich wife. Confused? Don't worry it leads to murder.
It's always kind of interesting watching movies from Greece as, unlike their south European neighbours the Italians and the Spanish, they didn't seem to make an awful lot of them. Consequently, apart from an abundance of bouzouki music, men with 'taches and picturesque locations, there isn't a lot that defines films from this country very clearly for me. One thing that does seem to generally tie them together is low budgets and Passionate Lovers is no different on that score. This certainly qualifies as a modest production with, in all honesty, not an awful lot actually going on. It is mainly a melodrama but with some criminal activity thrown in towards the end to give it a bit of impetus. Truthfully, the thrills are pretty underwhelming though and not really delivered with any verve, so the whole crime story element doesn't amount to an awful lot. It is resolved with a denouncement to events which you could charitably describe as 'underplayed'. The film begins and ends, though, with a woman seductively dancing to some Greek music and that was okay – it's just all the bits in between that sort of let the side down a bit. Aside from some minor thriller sequences such as a woman in peril of car fumes, there are some extended sex scenes to keep things more interesting but I would recommend you don't get too excited at the thought of those, as they aren't especially memorable either. In the final analysis, this one was most interesting to me as an example of Greek cinema, in general terms I didn't think it was too good though.
