Hymn to Erosou Making an erotic movie for Greek filmmakers was like breathing. There is no escape from the millennial traditions of national literature, laid down by Long and Sappho, and it is always easier to fight off zealous censors when the authority of such ancient classics is behind you. Back in 1931, the very young at that time, the director Orestos Laskos filmed the famous bucolic novel Daphnis and Chloe, not at all embarrassed by the naked female body and not at all symbolic embraces. Nikos Kunduros in 1963 went even further, shooting on the basis of this plot one of the most beautiful erotic films in the history of world cinema.
Probably, the viewer of the XXI century, accustomed to complete frankness on the screen, will not be easy to imbue with the beauty of black and white shots, in which sensuality and thus Eros permeated literally everything: every plan, every gesture, every look, but there is no rough naturalism. The director himself claimed that he wanted to express with his film the despair and disappointment of a generation that, after going through war, experienced the collapse of their ideals. But he himself admitted that the result was something completely different: tenderly sad, nostalgic-touching and romantic. Exciting with an incredibly beautiful picture and taking away from the imperfect world.
The original idea of the director corresponds only to the final of “Young Aphrodites”, in which Kunduros tried to dispel the idyll he created by himself, dipping his heroes into the prosaic mud of betrayal and parting. Only this dirt refused to stick to them, and therefore the dramatic outcome remains in this film a kind of externally introduced element. Roughly attached to the innocent pagan worldview by Christian morality.
From the point of view of the latter, the relationship between the characters of the tape is sinful and even criminal. However, from the point of view of the modern criminal code, too, because the younger characters of the picture are far from adulthood, and the relationship between them goes beyond platonic. But what was the ancient Greek classics before the laws of the XXI century? And after them and Nikos Kunduros - in the first love of his heroes there is tenderness and passion, jealousy and pain, trepidation and beauty. She, this love, does not hesitate to be erotic, but absolutely does not accept the dirt that has not yet come into this world with the Word of God. But if the characters of the film are pagans, then the director is a Christian. As much as he would like, he cannot identify himself with his characters. Therefore, the naive-bucolic picture of the world of “Young Aphrodites” is invaded by the disappointment and despair of the generation of forty-year-olds who lost their ideals, on behalf of whom Kunduros spoke. Therefore, the final will get bittersweet, with a taste of wormwood tincture on the lips.
But this struggle of paganism and Christianity in the soul of the director turned into incredibly beautiful shots, mesmerizingly-tight mise-en-scenes, a piercing dialogue of gestures, views, touches. The anthem of youth - which still has everything ahead. And the anthem of love, which conquers everything. Love, which forty-year-old disappointed director frankly envies.
There are a few words in Greek that denote this feeling, but the characters of the film do not know either the wise agape, the friendly philia, or the gentle storge. Only bright and violent eros. For all his skepticism, Nikos Kunduros frankly admires this eros, making him admire not only the audience, but also the jury of the Berlin Film Festival, which gave him the prize for best director. But this enthusiasm failed to break the line between pagan beauty and Christian morality. However, if this border fell, I would not have to call Young Aphrodite one of the best erotic films of all time.