Passionate Lovers (1982) User Reviews (4)

Fairly uneventful Greek drama

[Red-Barracuda · 5/10 · 16 November 2017]

A self-important theatre director is in serious debt and consequently in financial need of his successful artist wife whom he is being unfaithful to (again) with a new dancer discovery of his. In turn the dancer's friend's gym boss is in love with the rich wife. Confused? Don't worry it leads to murder.

It's always kind of interesting watching movies from Greece as, unlike their south European neighbours the Italians and the Spanish, they didn't seem to make an awful lot of them. Consequently, apart from an abundance of bouzouki music, men with 'taches and picturesque locations, there isn't a lot that defines films from this country very clearly for me. One thing that does seem to generally tie them together is low budgets and Passionate Lovers is no different on that score. This certainly qualifies as a modest production with, in all honesty, not an awful lot actually going on. It is mainly a melodrama but with some criminal activity thrown in towards the end to give it a bit of impetus. Truthfully, the thrills are pretty underwhelming though and not really delivered with any verve, so the whole crime story element doesn't amount to an awful lot. It is resolved with a denouncement to events which you could charitably describe as 'underplayed'. The film begins and ends, though, with a woman seductively dancing to some Greek music and that was okay – it's just all the bits in between that sort of let the side down a bit. Aside from some minor thriller sequences such as a woman in peril of car fumes, there are some extended sex scenes to keep things more interesting but I would recommend you don't get too excited at the thought of those, as they aren't especially memorable either. In the final analysis, this one was most interesting to me as an example of Greek cinema, in general terms I didn't think it was too good though.

Not the best film Efstratiadis did.

[a_lektor · 4/10 · 3 April 2020]

I feel that this is probably the least interesting job of O. Efstratiadis at least as far as concerned the erotic ones and from one point it's justified because its a fact that it was his last erotic one, secondly this is not anymore 70s but 80s where huge changes had happened in Greece politically, mentally and artistically. Above all private Television and VHS that conquered this decade, had a very negative effect on cinema.

As for the film itself I keep only the parts that Maria Jose Camtudo sang and I think it was a nice score partially cause every other song we hear in the movie had been used in Nico Mastorakis film "To koritsi vomva (the parapsychics)" 5 years earlier and I'm not really aware of what exactly and how this happened but seemed to me that this movie had to be done very quickly and just finish so it could pile with the rest and close this era once and for all.

The story in my opinion is the weakest Efstratiadis ever used in those erotic films. Aris Platonos is trapped in a long and boring marriage from which he escapes constantly using as an excuse his work as a director on the theater and by having several temporary lovers, young actresses mostly. His wife although she knew from the beginning that he married her for her money, she still loves him and tries to win him back. Aris meets Anna on an audition and they immediately fall for each other, although both of them try to seem as players. Aris has a lot of debts he ignores cause he only thinks of Anna but as she is a woman, she thinks further than that and asks him to clear out his relationship with his wife and find a solution for his debts. Then he asks his wife for divorce and when she denies and he leaves angry, his wife calls and finally sleeps with Petros, a friend who always loved and wanted he in a last attempt to make Aris jealous. Aris decides to have his wife killed, after he accidentally remembered of a couple of life insurances they both had done in the past, and agrees with a hit man to take her out. One day he comes back home and finds her dead body in the bathtub, he assumes that the job was done so when he goes to pay the killer he find out that she wasn't killed by him. The police suspects him of course and he worries tok much so Anna speaks with her friend Monika who worked in Petros's gym and she suggest to go and search his place and the gym while we see Petros buy an air ticket to Brussels. Petros comes back home and catches Anna going through his stuff and he tries to strangle her and then he put her fainted body into a garage with a started car so she would die from the gas, but last minute Monika found her and saved her. After that very shortly police arrests Petros at the airport and Aris cleared his name and watches Anna dancing and singing.

Its a pity that Efstratiadis didn't finish this glorious era of his with so many great films by making a better one or even better finish it at his previous one "Nefeli".

Interesting Plot but Rather Poorly Directed

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 1 June 2019]

This film essentially begins with a Greek talent scout named "Aris Platonas" (Andreas Barkoulis) who operates his own theater productions and consistently loses money hand over fist. Then one day he notices a beautiful dancer named "Anna" (Maria Jose Contudo) who easily entices him with her flirtatious gestures while auditioning for him. One thing leads to another and they fall in love. The problem, however, is that Aris has an extremely wealthy wife named "Sara Platonas" (Claudia Gravy) with whom he depends upon to keep him financially solvent. Yet, although Sara accepts his occasional extra-marital affairs, she has no desire to see another woman take him from her. But on the same token, while Aris has no desire to stay married, he recognizes that he cannot continue on with his lifestyle without his wife's money. And eventually he sees a solution to his problem. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film had a decent plot for the most part but the inclusion of multiple scenes involving Anna dancing and singing gave the film an amateurish quality overall. Fortunately, there is a surprising twist at the end which partially makes up for the rather poor direction. Likewise, having a gorgeous actress like Maria Jose Contudo also helps to some degree as well. But having said that, I don't believe that either of these two attributes were quite sufficient in my view to rate the film any higher than I have. Slightly below average.

Watchable Greek murder melodrama.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 5 March 2015]

A director/producer who is already indebted to his creditors for 15 million drachmas and also in bad terms with his wife,a rich sculptress who keeps him attached to her & her fortune in an arrogant way falls in love with a dancer during her audition for his new theatre show.Attraction is mutual and she soon becomes his mistress as well as a successful performer.The only problem is she doesn't like sharing him.So the wife must be eliminated.I enjoyed "Passionate Lovers".It's pretty sleazy Greek crime drama with plenty of sex and nudity.There are some surprising plot twists and the storyline is engaging.7 hired killers out of 10.