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A biting exchange between Magda and her son-in-law, perversely played out just a few feet in front of her vegetable husband, is as harrowing as anything you'll see on screen this year. A menacing score by Nikos Kypourgos heightens the frenzy.

Although the film is peppered with droll elements, such as an extended shot where the camera eavesdrops on clusters of gossipmongers at a cocktail party, the humor, instead of leavening the tragedy, actually serves to intensify it. It's more like Desperate Housewives as directed by Pedro Almodovar. (The film was released with no rating but if it had one, it would surely be NC-17).

Blackmail Boy is the latest from Reppas and Papathanasiou, who met at film school and have been partners for nearly two decades, collaborating on projects for television, film, and stage. Their first feature, Safe Sex, which took an unblinking look under the covers of a myriad of sexual liaisons, gay and straight, was a worldwide phenomenon in 1999, described by the Encyclopedia Britannica as "the biggest box office success in the history of Greek cinema." You may also know them from their 2001 effort, Silicon Tears.

The pair is largely credited with jump-starting a languishing mainstream Greek cinema, and they are household names in their country.

Blackmail Boy serves up a chilling portrait of a frayed family whose values have rusted beyond recognition. The drama was a controversial sensation that made the rounds at a dozen or so film festivals during the past couple of years, and won the coveted International Critics Award at the Thessalonika Film Festival. Given its highly charged homosexual content, not everyone was pleased.

This flick is far from perfect. It's so disjointed and confusing (the inferior subtitles made matters worse), I had to view it twice to fully appreciate. The pace is so frantic you'll barely have time to notice that the characters' motivations aren't fully explained. And as smolderingly sexy as Tsimitselis may be, he pretty much pouts his way through the film, looking bored.

Another sharp contrast from Desperate Housewives is characterization. Those people are either goofy, or bitchy with redeeming qualities. We love them despite their evildoings. The characters in Blackmail Boy, on the other hand, are so soullessly wicked, there's little reason to empathize with a single one of them.

Another caution: this is not the kind of affirming "out loud, out proud" film that most audiences expect from gay cinema these days. In fact, man-on-man action notwithstanding, this is in many respects an anti-gay film. There are no happy homos or blissful bi guys here. Christos, who refuses to kiss or even share a hotel room with a man, seems to be merely hooking up with Giorgos for the free motorcycle and weekend trips to Athens. Giorgos is a tortured, two-faced closet case. In this cruel world, sex is all about power, and homosexuality is viewed as a fate worse than death.

The film makes no apologies for being politically incorrect, a refreshing stance which, in a peculiar way, amplified the pathos even further.

Get more info at the official site

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