Starring: Yorgos Tsiantoulos, Andreas Labropoulos, Nikolaus Mihas
Director: Zacharias Mavroeidis
Country: Greece
UK Distributor: Peccadillo Pictures
Demos (Tsiantoulos) and Nikitas (Labropoulos) are best friends and the latter has been commissioned to write and direct a movie but is suffering from writer’s block. Looking back on their own friendship together, he decides to write an autobiographical script about the summer a few years ago when Demos broke up with his partner (Mihas) only to be left with custody of their dog, Carmen.
What follows is a filmic brainstorm, bouncing back and forth between the present day and that summer, watching as they analyse, dissect and re-enact moments of their own lives, creating films within films and reality within reality. A thoroughly meta experimental piece, it thankfully doesn’t take itself too seriously, with the tone frothy light and its vignettes pleasantly comic. And though this film sounds like it’s about a dog, this definitely isn’t Marley & Me, focusing far more on the human angle than anything to do with its canine co-star.
Vibrant and colourful, this adeptly captures the sun-drenched energy of a Greek summer without wandering into cliché. Its characters are very naked a lot of the time, but while its cast are extremely attractive there’s nothing about it depiction of nudity that seems excessive or exploitative. Instead, this is a film that aims to depict all the trappings of life as young gay men in the twenty-twenties. Even if that involves a large quantity of D.
While this is very easy to watch, its lightness does lead to it feeling somewhat inconsequential overall however. There’s very little storyline to speak of, so while we see many pleasing nuggets of scenes, they don’t assemble to form anything like a coherent whole. This is a director playing with narrative and form, but that doesn’t quite cut it in terms of just telling us a good story. There’s no doubt this sweet, fizzy and sexy, but it’s about as satisfying as a lollipop.
UK Release: 28th February 2025 in cinemas, released by Peccadillo Pictures
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