First, a confession - I was ready to like this film even before I saw it, because it was based on a classical text set in Greece ("Chloe and Dafnis", an early romance). What I wasn't ready for was the frank exploration of attraction, sex and perceived self-worth that this film offers. Imagine if someone was able to capture the essence of the mating ritual, stripped of nearly all its cultural clutter. That is what this film does, and in hauntingly beautiful tableaux vivants.What happens in the film? Well, the film opens in the distant past, as group of shepherds arrive at a new location to water their animals. On arrival, a young boy finds a local girl fishing and begins a tentative courtship. At the same time, an older shepherd does the same with a bird-catcher. But who is falling into whose nets? As we watch both couples, a series of themes are presented. Why are we aggressive in love? What do we understand of the engines of attraction? Can we ever come to know one another, or are we always strangers wandering? This film, shot in the early 1960s, gives its viewers questions that are far more modern than expected, and yet as old as the subject itself. This is a love story, provided that you understand that love is an absolutely unfathomable mystery.

I don't like black and white films full stop. Once colour was invented, why bother ever again with black and white, except to pretend it's art, innit? Also, people may feel they have to love this film because it's set in Ancient Greece and that alone demands respect and reverence. Me, well, I just watch a movie and decide whether I like it or not.This Young Aphrodites film was boring. It never took off. It was mainly just a young guy and gal endlessly chasing each other over rugged rocks, the little rascals. The older couple were about as convincing as a politician up for re-election. I don't think the girl ever smiled even once, which to my mind made her a bit of a sourpuss and not worth bothering with.As for the movie's production qualities, the sound was terrible. Lot's of scratching as if a million insects were rubbing their legs together. Maybe they were bored, too.

The film Young Aphrodites is loosely based on Daphnis and Chloe , one of the best known early Greek romances, precursors to the modern novel. It has been reinterpreted in music and art by Ravel and Chagall and in cinema by Nikos Koundouros in 1963.Written by Longus in the second century A.D, Daphnis and Chloe is a classical romance involving the adventures of two foundling children raised by adopted parents who are humble shepherds in the idyllic setting of the Isle of Lesbos. It is a famous love story that captures the awakening of a first love between two teenagers who don't know what is happening to them. The novel that was written almost two thousand years ago is surprisingly modern; it is erotic, tender, romantic, sensual, and simply beautiful.The ancient but forever young tale of the sexual awakening as adapted and retold by Nikos Koundouros in Young Aphrodites, takes place on a poetic island that might have came from ancient times. The film it full of symbolism, innocence, and darkness of desire and longing. Young Aphrodites, may and will disturb some or perhaps many viewers who are uncomfortable with the subject of youth sexuality, especially by the very young age of two actors, and by (even if artfully done) nudity of a young actress playing Chloe, Comparing to the novel of Dafnis and Chloe, the film is much darker and its ending can be viewed as dramatic even heartbreaking loss of innocence and first overwhelming love. The film creator, the Greek Director Nikos Koundouros refers to it as a film of desperation - "Desperation which is described in beautiful blue waters of Aegean Sea, with two young kids exploring their bodies. Desperation because we had discredited, abolished, and immobilized ourselves, we who had fought, who had raised our voices, who had demonstrated for a new world. There was nothing for us to do. In my desperation, I decided to work on nothingness. This is a film about ideological nothingness." The reason for making this movie might have been nothingness and desperation but the result nevertheless is sensual, young, and at the same time joyous and sad.Very sadly, the film is almost unknown to the modern audiences. There is no discussions, thoughts, and very few comments on it on on the major film forums. I found it an amazing, beautiful, and one of the most erotic movies ever made. It is a delightful gem which has stayed with me since I had pleasure to watch it.

I bought "Young Aphrodites" on videotape from Movies Unlimited several years ago. Atmy first viewing I was enchanted. Eventually I watched it so many times over the following years that I wore it out. The two youngsters (the boy sheepherder and the village girl who interests him) are the main story. Also, there is a story of an adult couple. The passionate pursuit of the bird tamer (young woman) by the shepherd (young man) and the sexual consummation of that pursuit colors the story of the boy and girl. A dead pelican? seems to be the unusual center of the boy's attempts to interest the girl. Not entirely sure why he is pursuing the girl (but having an idea from having stumbled on the sexual encounter of the older couple, he invests her with an innocence only to find that he has a rival in the form of another boy. This boy sees the girl as a sexual conquest. The rivalry, the innocent pursuit and its shattering resolution end the main story and the sheepherders return home.