Erotic Passion

You switch off your brain and watch a film by Ilias Mylonakos. A Greek island, seductive people walking around naked and very, very eager to have sex without asking too many questions. It’s all good, right? It’s typical Greek cinema, after all—simple, straightforward, no deep thoughts. Or at least, that’s usually how it goes in most of the films we’ve seen so far.

And in Erotiko Pathos, things seem to start off the same way. In the first ten minutes, we see two of the female leads naked and having sex: the always stunning Femi Benussi, who’s nearing the end of her career, and Monica Nickel, a Polish actress who became an Italian citizen. She’s had small roles in a few genre films and even a part in Vacanze di Natale (but let’s remember her for the genre films).

Everything’s still going fine. But then, minute by minute, you start to notice a crime plot and a bit of a thriller vibe creeping into the story, which isn’t half bad. So much for carefree, sun-soaked fun. Now you’ve got to actually pay attention and think?

To be fair, the basic idea isn’t bad, but it’s clear the story needed some fine-tuning and corrections. It’s definitely something that could still serve as a good starting point for an erotic thriller today.

But Mylonakos manages to mess it up. And he does it well. A ridiculous ending, softcore scenes every five minutes, and nudity every three, without much reason or explanation. The whole thing is told at an oppressive pace, with tedious scenes and editing that feels like it was done with a hatchet.

But, stripping away all these flaws, I’ll stick with what I said earlier: the story isn’t that bad. In the end, it works out, mostly thanks to the beauty of the leads, Femi Benussi and Monica Nickel, and the ever-powerful Ajita Wilson, who would team up with the Athenian director again in Orgia Stin Kerkira in 1983. It’s also worth mentioning that within this genre, Mylonakos knows what he’s doing—he’s got a good eye for filming the nude bodies of the actors. Of course, I’ll say it again, if he’d done it a bit less, it would have been better. But it is what it is.

Della (played by Monica Nickel) is a super-rich 19-year-old who’s been orphaned and left in the care of her aunt Marsha (Femi Benussi), who controls her money. The two have a terrible relationship, and as revenge, Della steals one of Marsha’s lovers and has sex with him on the beach right in front of her.

Fed up with Marsha’s words, Della runs away and hides out at a friend’s house. But when she gets there, the place is now occupied by Stefanos (Stratos Zamidis) and Samantha (Ajita Wilson), two criminals who’ve killed and robbed a business partner or something like that, and now they’re planning to escape to Italy.

There’s an instant connection and strong erotic attraction between the three of them—because, of course, there is—which leads Della to go to Rome to get fake documents in exchange for having her aunt killed.