What is it with the Greeks? When they make a film about their own country or their islands, it's usually wet, windy or snowing and set in winter and showing their countrymen up as sexist boors. When outsiders make a film set in Greece it's summer and baking hot. Argyris Papadimitropoulos' "Suntan" starts in the winter on a small island, (population 800), which may make the title seem a little incongrous. Still, we don't have to wait too long until the suntan lotion comes out and the Greek Tourist Board can start to smile...at least up to a point.Kostis is the new doctor on the island and he has his fair share of patients for such a small place. However, one look at him and you can see he's not happy. Summer may bring sunshine and the kind of young tourists who give the Greek islands a bad name so it isn't long before Kostis is frequenting the local nudist beach. When he develops a fixation on Anna, a girl he has treated for a motorbike accident, he seems happier but we know his problems are just beginning.You can tell from the opening shot there's going to be a heart of darkness to Papadimitropoulos' film. Kostis is the kind of sad sack whose very presence seems to conjure up bad vibes and you know that throwing himself into the local party scene can only end in tears. Very soon his reputation and his patients are suffering. Makis Papadimitriou is very good as Kostis but it's an underwritten role and the film itself feels slightly underwhelming. The scenery is fabulous and it will certainly make you want to go to the Greek islands though you may want to choose where and exactly what time of the year. You may also come out of this film in something of a downer.

When the story begins, Kostis (Makis Papadimitriou) has come to the Greek island of Antiparos to become the town's doctor. It's the middle of winter and the place is quiet and lonely. However, each summer the place is swamped with tourists…wild, young and fun-loving tourists. And the quiet town becomes a hive of clubs, clothing optional beaches, sex and drinking. As for Kostis, he's a dull, emotionally constricted middle-aged man and seems out of his element when a group of crazy young people arrive in his office after a minor accident. One of them, Anna (Elli Tringou), seems to have taken an inexplicable liking for the dull doctor and she invites him to join them at the beach some time. Soon, Kostis joins this same group at the beach but he looks very much out of place…and you wonder why they like him. While most of the bathers are young, tanned and naked, he's a pasty bald man…wearing a lot of clothes on a clothing optional beach. He certainly is a fish out of water, so to speak. Later, when they head to the clubs, he goes along…and, once again, seems really out of place and awkward. It really seems like Kostis is trying to live his 20s all over again…but is ill- equipped for this wild life. And, in some ways, it seems as though he is totally alone…even though he's surrounded by people.Over the following days, Kostis goes out bathing and partying with this same crazy group of young people again and again. However, it becomes obvious that although he hangs with this group he really is only interested in Anna. She is interested…but only in a fleeting way…but Kostis misinterprets this for love. Soon, he's obsessed and eventually this obsession leads to a complete disintegration of his life. This disintegration is tough to watch…and the picture is unflinching.This is a hard movie to categorize. It certainly is not a comedy. And, while it seems light and cheerful initially, later it becomes a very dark and ugly sort of story. This does not mean that the film is badly made….the acting is quite nice and the story engaging. But it also is a tough sell for the average viewer. Of course the film has a lot of nudity…such is life on many beaches in Greece. But it also ends on a very violent and disturbing note…and that I you should know that the film ends with a rather vivid rape scene. It could conjure up memories of past victimization and is a bit tough to watch…so viewers should beware. Overall, this is a well made film that becomes tougher and tougher to watch. Very well made, it manages to convey a lot with a minimal amount of dialog. It certainly is interesting….but also is not for all tastes.

Kostis, a glum, middle-aged doctor, arrives with his pot-belly and receding hairline on a small Greek island to run the local clinic. It is winter and the island feels quiet and isolated - conversation for Kostis consists mainly of the local ageing Lothario promising him a United Nations of 'pussy' when the tourist season starts. Sure enough, summer brings with it hordes of tourists, and Kostis falls in with a group of twentysomethings who, when they are not partying hard in the local nightclubs, spend their time on the clothing-optional beach. They are all sleek and lovely (excepting one particularly horrendous beard) and among them Kostis sticks out like a sore thumb, but they tolerate him until he starts to drink increasingly heavily and ignore his duties at the clinic, indicating he is not as amusingly harmless as he at first appeared.Efthymis Papadimitriou turns in a good performance, portraying well both Kostis' pathetic eagerness to please the youngsters and providing a nice line in staring-eyed obsessiveness. He is also brave, offering to the camera his doughy, hairy body which is in marked contrast to the tanned firmness of the younger actors. The other characters - both tourists and locals - are all pretty much two-dimensional stereotypes, with the exception of Anna, young leader of the group and object of Kostis' admiration. Elli Triggou manages to make her not too obnoxious.As soon as Kostis finds happiness with the group, movie law dictates that things are not going to end well and in that the film is entirely predictable - and I found that waiting for the inevitable embarrassment to happen distracted me from the rest of the film. So I am not sure I would bother to watch it again, but it was worth seeing once.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the way this film unfolded. And it seldom happens watching movies anymore, lately scenarios are predictable and repetitive, this one is none of these. The director did a superb job in building up his characters. The movie's main theme shows how desire can blind you to the point that you have no self awareness, where the central character becomes hypnotized and losses all sense of his dignity and humanity. Makis Papadimitriou who plays a single, unloved solitary man in his 50'sis, does a superb job. He is an older man who falls madly in love and although at times he had to be excessive, his acting was realistic and left me suffocating, wanting to get into the screen to stop him. The cinematography was amazing, set in a sleepy sandy little Greek island, a paradise, a place that we would all want to fall in love.