Tango of Perversion tells the story of Joachim (Vagelis Voulgaridis), a young man who suffers from impotence. As as result he’s obsessed by sex. During the opening credits sequence Joachim is siting in a night club watching people dance and he imagines that all the girls are naked. Which gives Karagiannis the opportunity to show us bare boobies in the first few seconds of the movie. Which shows that Karagiannis understands what the exploitation movie biz is all about - you need to get the attention of the punters right at the start.
Joachim gets his jollies by filming people having sex. He films them through a one-way mirror. He lets his friend Stathis (Lakis Komninos) borrow his apartment whenever he wants it so that Stathis can have sex with his various women. Stathis has no idea that his sexual escapades are all being captured on film.
Joachim’s doctor has assured him that there’s nothing physically wrong with him. His impotence is caused by fear. It makes sense that Joachim would be afraid of women because he seems to be afraid of just about everything.
Stathis earns his money as a gigolo. He is having trouble with his girlfriend Joanna (Erika Raffael). He hasn’t got the money to buy drugs for her and if she can’t drugs from him she’ll get them from a lady friend. A lesbian lady friend named Rosita.
One memorable night Joachim lets Rosita borrow his apartment. Rosita and Joanna are just about to get down to some serious lesbo loving when Stathis shows up and things get all crazy and violent.
The upshot of all this is that Joachim makes an amazing discovery. He’s too frightened to have sex with living girls but dead girls aren’t frightening at all.
It’s all very sleazy (as you may have gathered) but it’s sleazy in a slightly tongue-in-cheek off-kilter way that makes it less offensive than it sounds. There’s just a hint of black comedy to the proceedings. It’s subtle but it’s there and it makes things more interesting. The fact that it’s hard to tell just how seriously we’re expected to take the movie that makes it intriguing. I suspect that we’re supposed to approach it in a slightly ironic way. On the surface it seems serious and then again it’s just too outrageous to be taken seriously.
While this is not a sex comedy Joachim is the kind of character who’d be right at home in that type of movie. He’s shy and awkward and decidedly nerdy. I liked Vagelis Voulgaridis’s performance. It’s low-key and I liked the subtle glee he takes in his new-found depravity.
Lakis Komninos as Stathis is also good. Stathis is a very nasty piece of work and yet he’s slightly absurd. He tries very hard to be a tough guy but he’s such an obvious loser that you don’t really believe he could ever be totally successful as the hard man he thinks he is.
Erika Raffael looks gorgeous. She had a brief career in the 70s, mostly in Britain. I know nothing at all about Dorothy Moore, who plays Rosita.
There’s plenty of violence but no gore. There’s quite a bit of nudity and sex although by 1974 western European standards it would be considered to be pretty tame.
The major influence at work here is obviously the giallo and Tango of Perversion does have a giallo look to it. It’s not quite a giallo though. To my mind there’s a slight Theatre of the Absurd feel to this film. At times it reminded me just a tiny bit of Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac.
The transfer is fullframe. Mondo Macabro warn us upfront that the source print was problematical but the transfer is actually very good. Both Greek and English language versions are provided (the former with English subtitles). Extras include a documentary on postwar Greek cinema which is actually pretty good.
Tango of Perversion doesn’t have the punch that the best giallos have but it’s sexy and kinky and twisted and enormously entertaining with some rather nice plot twists. Highly recommended.
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