Review: Suntan (2016)
Director: Argyris Papadimitropoulos

Suntan is screening on 6 and 13 August as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, see www.miff.com.au for further details.

The irony of youth is being afforded the opportunity to live recklessly as if it were your last day on earth, yet still having the good part of a lifetime ahead of you. The fleeting gifts of idealistic self-certainty, taut skin and immunity to hangovers are a strong foundation for days and nights spent exploring your physical and psychological boundaries before the tedium of nine-to-five reality takes hold.

But time is cruel to everyone in the end, to some more so than others, and director Argyris Papadimitropoulos has no hesitations in ruthlessly portraying the regret and quiet despair of a life being dealt a poor hand in Suntan, his newest outing which has already picked up Best International Film Feature at the 70th Edinburgh Film Festival and a handful of other prizes.

Shot entirely on the southern Aegean island of Antiparos, the film follows Kostis (Efthymis Papadimitriou), a middle-aged general practitioner whose body and soul have seen better days, as he arrives in the soporific coastal village during winter to settle in for the coming tourist season. He is impassive and disengaged from the island’s community, indifferent to their efforts to welcome and socialise with him.

However, summer brings the arrival of the tourist hordes, including Anna (Elli Tringou) and her cohort of similarly youthful, flirtatious travellers, who tumble into Kostis’ medical practice in a whirlwind of carefree vivacity, seeking treatment for a minor graze.

Kostis is immediately drawn to Anna, and soon ventures out to the beach to scheme a supposed chance encounter with the group. His fascination turns to infatuation, spending the afternoons by the water and the evenings in the clubs, showering Anna and friends with booze and affection, discovering what was perhaps an unlived fragment of his youth. His work, meanwhile, suffers.

The cause of Kostis’ desolation and dissatisfaction with life is never fully revealed. He briefly encounters Orestis (Syllas Tzoumerkas, screenplay) on the beach, a former medical school colleague revelling in the joy of family life and fulfilling work. Kostis gives only a vague explanation that things simply didn’t quite work out when questioned by Orestis on his circumstances.

The contrast between their respective lifestyles and predicaments is blunt, as is the juxtaposition between Kostis’ ageing body and the lithe, sexually-charged physiques of his newfound clique.

These differences, however, do not deter Kostis from his fixation on Anna, blind to the fleeting nature of their entanglement. Whatever sympathy the viewer has for this lonely and desperate man turns to dismay as his behaviour becomes more erratic, undignified and aggressive when Anna attempts to distance herself from his advances.

Any preconceptions the viewer may have had about Suntan being a lighthearted jab at midlife crises (or, for that matter, simply an unforgiving ridicule of physical decrepitude) will be dashed. Cloaked by the sun, sand and hedonism of Antiparos is an unsettling story of isolation, obsession and disastrous lack of self-awareness. It’s by no means a unique formula, but the performances of Papadimitriou and Tringou bring such a clash of darkness and light to the screen that you find your sympathies and grievances with their characters being flung back and forth through the course of the film.

The viewer can discern early on that Suntan will not have a joyous conclusion; but then again, life itself doesn’t always have a joyous conclusion either. If nothing else, we can at least take away the message of carpe diem and to hopefully act with some degree of propriety in our lives, unlike the tragic Kostis.