Is Lovers Beyond Time a Hidden Treasure or Dumpster Fire?
DVD Distributed By: Mondo Macabro / February 13, 2018
Sylvia and Angelos have an intense relationship. Too intense for Sylvia, who breaks it off. Three years later, with Angelos dead, Sylvia lives with a doctor and works for a record company. Her new life is suddenly invaded by a succession of bizarre events: strange deaths occur around her and she experiences a series of involuntary orgasms, as though a man she can feel but not see is making love to her – in the street, at work, in her car. All of this seems connected in some way with a mysterious musician she is trying to track down, a man who constantly evades her; until one night her phone rings….
With influences ranging from early Cronenberg to Italian erotic thrillers of the 1970s, the film is a journey into the dangerous world of the irrational, where time contracts and expands and where people are at the mercy of natural laws that change suddenly, violently and without warning.
Trashmen Rubbish Round Table
Jamie
Ok so you have our main character Angelos who is head over heels with his girlfriend Sylvia. They have dinner one night, fuck in the restaurants bathroom, and then she calls it quits leading Angelo’s devastated. Three years later she is married to Angelos’s doctor but she encounters strange happenings around her which causes her to get nude and masturbate. Come to find out Angelos isn’t really dead, he’s time traveling to get revenge on the people who destroyed his relationship with Sylvia.
Jimbo
I don’t think Sylvia married Angelos’ doctor. I don’t think Angelos knew Michalis. Or vice-versa.
Jamie
My description sounds better than the movie really is. Aside from some full frontal Greek boobies and hairy baklava’s, the film is a total bore with none of the actors looking the least bit interested in what is taking place. Well, neither is the audience.
Jimbo
And Sylvia isn’t masturbating. She’s having cosmic orgasms because Angelos is fucking her younger self in another time and dimension (Yes, that makes about as much sense in print as it did on film). They’re…Lovers Beyond Time…
Travis
My exposure to Greek cinema isn’t very expansive. It is this title and Singapore Sling. Based on that I have to say Greek films suck.
Jamie
The screenplay, while at times incoherent, is poorly written with some awful dialog that seems like it was written by a heart-broken teenage boy.
Craig
It’s more disappointing than a lot of films because there are good ideas in it. It just doesn’t seem like any of them are really fleshed out. You could use this as a, I don’t know, a rumination on the way time changes a relationship. You could use this to explore the different ways that men and women view an abusive relationship (the man sees what he’s doing as ‘destiny’). The frustrating thing is that both of those ideas (and more) are there and yet so underdeveloped it almost feels accidental. Add to that the very very clunky dialog (seeming written by a mopey 15 year old) bored performances and slow as molasses pacing and you’ve got a rough film viewing experience.
Jimbo
Conceptually there’s a lot going on in this film. I was the only one of us daring (or stupid) enough to watch this twice. I was hopeful on the second screening that the answers to the film would reveal themselves to me. Nope! It’s just so damn slow and boring. And I think a major problem with Lovers Beyond Time is that every character is so wooden and robotic. Even though that’s kind of the point of Sylvia’s character. She’s detached from her friends and husband, but there’s nothing for an audience to get emotionally involved or invested in. It’s just a lot of heady mumbo-jumbo to try and sound smart and sophisticated.
Jamie
I liked some of the lighting as the film has ample amounts of colors thrown about. While it doesn’t make sense, it is at least different and appealing. I also like boobs and female Greek grass. That’s about the best I can say for it.
Travis
I will agree with you on some of the lighting and of course the nudity, including explicit foot shots, there isn’t much else to recommend with this. There are so many ways this could have been better if they went in a different direction, like play up the killer beyond time aspect beyond just the lover part. The one kill had a solid giallo feel to it, but then it is back to absolute boredom.
Jimbo
Did you guys notice that Angelos is apparently the world’s greatest human? Guy makes a time machine. Is able to cheat death by helping his younger self have a three way with the same woman from different dimensions. Can murder anyone without leaving any evidence. AND he can compose and perform original music that is in high demand and heavily sought after. Guy is a fucking superman!
Jamie
I never thought of it that way…yeah apparently Angelos is basically God. I like how he created a time machine and it’s more of a matter of fact issue than some global phenomenon. Makes no sense.
I’m gonna say it…I gotta say it…IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME!
Jimbo, Travis, & Craig
(silence)
Jamie
Guys?
Travis
I’m ignoring that.
Jimbo
There’s enough developed material here for a short film, but not a feature. A fun experiment would be to take the footage and edit it down into a short film. Take all of the best elements and trim it down to a 15 minute thriller.
Craig
Do you guys remember how many times he actually travels through time? 4 times? And there’s, what, three sex scenes, two of which involve time travel? I want more sex and time travel from my sex/time travel movies
Travis
What is the worst aspect in all of this is that I think the audience is expected to buy his God combined with Elon Musk combined with Buckaroo Bonzai act is due to…….the power of love. Awful. I’m taking half a can off just for that. Rating – 0.5 gyros.
Jamie
The Greek Matrix.
Jimbo
As it stands, I side with Travis on this one. 0.5 gyros. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s just too painstaking and cumbersome.
Jamie
It’s not a good film but I don’t think it warrants that low. I’d rather watch this again than some of the Intervision crap we have watched in the past like Dark Harvest or Suffer Little Children.
Jimbo
Plain and simple, this movie is a bore! Just an absolute slog to get through. I think we all agree that there are ambitions and aspects worthy of exploration and praise. But as a collective whole the movie is a fail.
Consider the editing, for example. Even the editing is very slow and drawn out. If I need to imply Sylvia is driving to a location, this can be accomplished with a shot of her getting into her car intercut with another shot of her at the final location. I don’t need to see the entire trip from driving down the road, driving up to building, getting our of car, walking up to building, etc, etc. But the film is paced and edited to show every single one of these beats. It becomes draining after a while.
Jamie
Oh no question it sucks but it wasn’t the worst turd I have ever seen either.
Craig
I give it 1 can for all the blue gels.
Jamie
I am not going to defend the film as I thought it was boring and bland, like eating plain grits or packaged mashed potatoes without salt or butter. But I have seen worse and at least this had a hand stabbing and boobies. Plus the movie does end in a threesome.
Hidden Treasure/Dumpster Fire?
| Jimbo: |  (0.5 / 5) |
| Jamie: |  (1.0 / 5) |
| Travis: | (0.5 / 5) |
| Craig: | (1.0 / 5) |
| Average: |  (0.8 / 5) |
Special Features
STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND – 2009; documentary, 90 minutes
This ground-breaking and important documentary reveals the hitherto untold story of Greek genre cinema over the last 50 years, dealing with Film Noir, Thrillers, Fantasy films and Sci-Fi. It includes a wealth of interviews with directors, writers and critics and clips from more than 50 films. Very little of the information included here has been available before outside Greece and it will be essential viewing to anyone interested in the wider world of genre cinema.
THE EROTIC, THE FANTASTIC – 2017; interview, 25 minutes
An interview with director Dimitris Panayiotatos where he talks about his own career, studying film in Paris in the 1970s, writing and publishing books and magazines on sci-fi and fantasy cinema and the difficulties of working in the fantastic genres in a country where comedy is king.
THE LAST MEAL – 1988 – TV episode, 25 minutes
An episode from a Greek Twilight Zone style TV series called Tales of Love and Terror.
