There’s a pretty universal theme in all of our individual lives, we all reach a period of malaise when we are bored and distressed with the seeming banality of life. This period is lovingly called a “mid-life crisis”. The period of time when youth has officially escaped us and that sense of ever progressing goals and events screeches to a halt. We are left with a feeling that we’ve been robbed, that life is a amalgamation of mundanity. Most of us fight this with desperate, and mostly sad, attempts at recapturing youth, vitality and meaning. This is the time of our communal human experience that Suntan, the new film from Argyris Papadimitropoulos, seems to be interested in. The interesting thing about Suntan, though, is how it goes about that answer.
The film follows Kostis, (Makis Papadimitrou) a doctor new to a tiny Greek island that is only really vibrant during the summer season. The film begins during Winter and all of the banal, food, work, shower, repeat. Suntan spends a large portion of it’s opening act really reveling in this minutia of boredom in order to really understand Kostis and his seemingly empty life. Then summer happens.
The island in summer is the direct and intentional antithesis to the winter, full of youth, life, and excitement. This brings Anna (Elli Tringou) a young woman who has everything Kostis does not, vibrancy, spontaneity, hope. The two characters seems diametrically opposed, the yin and yang of life. Anna sees life with nothing but excitement and love, Kostis is simply trying not to succumb to the weight of the seemingly emptiness of his life. Somehow though, the two bond. This is when the film shifts.
This is also when I stop describing the events in the film. Suffice it to say, Suntan is not exactly what is being sold during the early portion of the film. While the film could have, and will probably be expected to, spend its time examining this relationship and the larger scope of meaning in human life, Suntan has darker intentions. This film is not simply a rumination on aging and mortality, it is a story of obsession and the darkness capable in the seemingly most harmless places.
This shift is probably what is going to enamor or offend an audience member. While the seeming theme is a universal and known experience for all of us, the theme it shifts to is something most of us do not understand or feel comfortable entertaining. Kostis is not a simple symbol of middle-age, he is something far more complex and disturbing. This shift and shocking ending is both what makes Suntan unique and disturbing. In truth, the fact that Suntan shifts so darkly and suddenly amplifies the affect of the theme of the film. The film will make you feel, will make you think, and will make you contemplate.
