Argyris Papadimitropoulos is a Greek film-maker whose work I didn’t know before seeing this unbearably sad story of sexual obsession. His style stands a little outside the black-comic absurdism of contemporaries such as Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari, but he deserves to be as well known as them.
Suntan is tremendously acted, fiercely and instantly absorbing, a tragicomic tale of male midlife breakdown, featuring someone who could possibly be described as an EasyJet Gustav von Aschenbach. Makis Papadimitriou (who was in Tsangari’s film Chevalier) is excellent as Kostis, a plump, bald, middle-aged doctor who, after an unspecified history of personal disappointment, takes up a job as local practitioner on a Greek island whose economy depends on the summer months, when it becomes party central for beautiful twentysomethings. Poor, lonely Kostis one day has to attend to Anna (Elli Tringou), a gorgeous young woman who has fallen off her quad bike. She playfully takes a shine to Kostis and, with the heedless caprice and cruelty of youth, invites him to hang out on the beach with her and her friends after his daily clinic. Inevitably, Kostis embarrasses himself by falling deeply in love with her. Humiliation and worse is in store.
It is superbly directed and shot with great scenes: quietly devastating when Kostis is happily dancing at a club until his poor face is creased with sadness when he realises that Anna and the gang have gone. And Kostis licking sand out of Anna’s eyeball is an extraordinary moment. Trevor Howard never thought to try that with Celia Johnson.
