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.

Argyris Papadimitropoulos' film 'Suntan' tells an unfortunately familliar and painful story: someone flirts, whether for good or bad reasons, with a lonely person; and that person responds with undue seriousness. The film's problems lies less in the fact that it's not exactly cheerful, but more in the fact that it's not really convincing. The central character is a doctor, but his personal decorum is quite unlike that of any doctor I've ever known; quite why a girl takes even a passing interest in him is unclear; and how he can deceive himself that things are ever going well as he tries to integrate into her crowd is also unclear. It's not that humans aren't capable of telling themselves stories, particularly where sex is concerned, but a story needs a seed, and this one seems to grow out of nothing. The resulting tregedy is thus not just painful to watch, but also a little bizarre.

This film begins with a man by the name of "Kostis Makridis" (Makis Papadimitriou) arriving by ferry to the small Greek island of Antiparos where he is to work as the village doctor. Since it is the winter there really isn't much for him to do but six months later the island attracts numerous tourists which helps maintain the village economy. It's then that a young woman named "Anna" (Elli Tringou) is carried into the clinic by some of her friends because of a motorcycle accident. After a quick examination Kostis tells her that she will be fine and in gratitude she invites him to join her friends for some fun on the beach. Kostis reluctantly accepts but little does he know that his life will dramatically change afterward. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting film which captured the wild and hedonistic lifestyles of young men and women seeking pleasure above everything else. And to that end there is quite a bit of nudity-so viewer discretion may be advised. Additionally, although it is billed as a comedy I failed to see any humor whatsoever. Even so, I still thought it was an enjoyable film for the most part and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.