Without sugar.
- You see, I'm learning to remember. - Look! She's welcoming us.
I'll like it here, I know.
Let's stay and not ever go home.
What did we forget in New York, or in Venusburg, Virginia?
Just two not very happy families.
Maybe this is the happiness that begins after "happy ever after, the end".
Is marriage an end? I thought it was a beginning.
And I'm not sure life is a fairy-tale too.
Though you are my beautiful princess.
I guess I really am modern royalty,
since the newspapers call Daddy a stock-market king.
Kiss me, maybe I'll turn back into a frog.
Out of the way!
Welcome to Lesbos,
Mr. and Mrs. Lovell. I am Dionisios.
Call me Phil. May I present my wife, Sappho?
I am enchanted, kyria.
Sir is a painter, yes? Madam is also an artist?
No. Madam is a housewife. She doesn't even paint her face.
Madam is likely a star in the moving pictures.
How do you like our island's light, Mister Lovell?
It feels like only it is real, and that I'm just a shadow.
Alas, our light is all we have to call our own.
Lesbos is now just a factory that breeds babies
for export to your new worid.
We Greeks are an paradoxical people.
We say "ne" when we say "yes", we nod when we mean "no";
the angrier we are, the more we smile;
and we glory that we invented modern civilization,
and yet we live lost in the past.
Here is the motor car. You see how very backward we are -
it is the only automobile on the whole island.
But, madam, driving is not for a lady.
Welcome to nineteen-twenty-six. If a girl can vote, why can't she drive?
Please slow down, Mrs. Lovell!
Why? Brakes are for cowards!
Welcome to the Villa Byron.
This is Maria, she is the woman. She will cook and clean.
The child is called Christos, because only God knows who is his father.
- He is his mother's shame. - What an odd cat. What's its name?
- Cassandra. - Cassandra?
- Where shall I put your parrots? - They're not parrots. They're lovebirds.
Put them on the table.
What are you doing? Surely they will escape.
The cage is their home, not their prison.
And lovebirds will only sing if they're free to fly away.
- Wow. Who built this ruin? - An English lord.
He was quite mad.
He wrote poetry and loved boys, but as you can see,
he was very rich.
Even the paintings are all old masters.
Look.
It's the ghost of the mad English lord.
Is not the house splendid?
Your father's instructions were that only the best would do.
Yes, Daddy is calculating his investment will yield the return of a grandson.
Quite. Of course.
Now I will leave you alone.
So how do you like your new home, Mrs. Lovell?
It's just fine.
Just like my new husband.
Do you always wake up so early?
- Uh-ha. Where did you get the waistcoat? - It was hanging in a cupboard.
Don't you like it?
It looks good on you.
- But it's what the men here wear. -So?
People like us shouldn't follow fashions; we should lead them.
Here's one for you too.
Now we really can look like brother and sister.
If you were my sister and not my wife, this would be incest.
Did you know that "incest" is an anagram of "nicest"?
And don't call me your "wife". It's such a bourgeois word.
"Mistress-for-life" sounds so much better.
Hey, I was painting that.
How do you see all those colours?
I must be the creative type.
That makes us a perfect couple.
Because I'm the destructive sort.
Back home everybody believes you struck paydirt with me,
but you don't know how unlucky you are.
I'll annihilate you. All that will be left of you is
a broken cross to mark your unkept grave.
- I'm looking forward to the day. - Let's go for a swim. That's an order.
What are you waiting for? The sea's wonderful.
What's wrong? Haven't you ever seen a grown man in swimming trunks before?
Let's swim out as far as we can.
Stop. I can't swim any further.
Let's dive down so deep that we can only just make it back up.
Okay, but I won't believe you've touched the bottom unless you bring up a pebble.
- Wow! Are you alright? - What did you get?
Nothing. I was too busy saving your life.
Do you know what it is?
It's some kind of dove.
It's a prayer.
Long ago women used to make offerings like these to Aphrodite,
the ancient Greek goddess of love.
It's a sign. It must mean that she approves of my plans.
What plans?
I don't know. I haven't made them yet. Come on; I'll race you back to the shore.
It's alright. Nobody can see us.
Don't you want to be tanned like an antelope,
and not striped like a zebra?
- I'm shy. - You're beautiful.
I read in the "New York Times" that a Swiss physicist has calculated
the sun is getting hotter every year.
Some day we're all going to be fried like fritters on a griddle.
That's good.
I'd like to bake until I'm black.
Why do you want that?
I don't know.
Why do we want anything? You're an artist; you should know
desire doesn't need a reason.
It just is. Or isn't.
Won't you like it when I wear my tan in bed?
I'll love it. But you'll get sunburnt.
Uh-uh. I'm dark on the inside really.
The sun just develops it; like a photograph.
Promise me that we'll sunbathe here every day until we're changed.
What do you want us to become?
Us, of course.
Only different. Reversed.
Did it hurt, like on the boat?
Are you men really such numbskulls?
It was like seeing another color in the rainbow.
A new color all my own.
My nanny never told me "it" could be like that for a woman.
Long ago, when the worid was young,
the Greek gods once quarreled over
who received more pleasure in bed - a man or a woman.
So they visited a blind seer named Tiresias,
who one day was a man, and the next day a woman,
and they asked him-her his-her opinion, and Tiresias replied
that as a woman she got ten times more pleasure
than he was ever given as a man.
- Poor Phil! - Lucky Phil.
Every artist must learn that what matters is what you give and not what you get.
I... Why do you men always want to know in words? I am tonight. Isn't that enough?
Ah, there's my muse. You look nice.
- Are you bored of me yet? - No, I'm not bored of you.
I want to grow old with you.
And you do love me, don't you? And you love me just as I am?
Yes.
Of course yes. Why do you keep asking?
Because I'm bored of me. I'm bored of being the nice decent girl
everybody wants me to be.
I just want you to be yourself.
That's good. Because I want to be different.
How do you mean - different?
- That's my surprise. - Wait. I'll come with you.
No, you stay and finish my portrait.
Thank you.
Hello?
- You are welcome. - You speak English?
I was a sailor. I learnt on the ships.
But I think Madam has made a mistake. I cut the hair of gentlemen.
No, there is no mistake.
I want you to cut my hair short. Very short.
Like a boy's.
But, madam, I have read
such experiments are made in Paris and New York.
But are you sure? On this island?
Do you really want to destroy your beauty?
Madame is quite sure.
Madame has wanted this change for a very long time.
But it is impossible. Madame is married.
Madame is not her husband's property.
And she will pay very well.
You do not mind?
I am worried how people will gossip.
May I disturb you? Is it you who arrived a few weeks ago on the boat?
You look so lovely. So changed.
That was my caterpillar phase. Now I am a butterfly.
May I sit down?
I feel we've met before.
Never. At least, not in this lifetime.
Let's have a drink.
Two ouzos. With oysters.
- Helene. Helene Orlova. - Sappho Lovell.
Sappho? Do you know the history of your name?
It's the name my mother chose for me. She died giving me birth.
You have a namesake - a poetess who lived two thousand five hundred years ago.
She made this island famous. Let me take you to the museum -
you can meet her there.
Isn't it too early for spirits?
Why should men be allowed all the fun?
To new friends!
That's Sappho. Or so it says.
Actually it was painted fifty years after her death.
She doesn't look like me one bit.
What's written there?
It's a stanza of her poetry.
"Some men say nothing on the dark-soiled earth
as lovely as infantry on parade,
other men cavalry, or swift warships;
but I say
loveliest is whom you love."
That's beautiful.
We know that Sappho wrote nine books of poetry,
and that she was so famous that
her profile was minted on the local coins.
But the early Christians burnt her works.
Why did the monks burn her work if she was so well-known?
Because it was love poetry written by a woman to women.
It was Sappho who put the "lesbian" in "Lesbos".
How is it that you know so much about her?
My father is a professor of archaeology. He's working on an excavation here.
Because of Lenin and the Revolution we can't back to Russia.
Come on, I'll show you what else is kept locked up in here.
Where are we?
This is where we hide our most interesting finds from the public.
What on earth is that?
It's a priapus - a ceremonial penis.
In ancient times they placed a statue like this in every orchard
to scare off thieves and to fertilize the trees.
They displayed that in full public view?
The ancient Greeks weren't like us;
they weren't ashamed of sex. To them it was holy.
Even the word "orgy" originally meant "sacrament".
Stroke him - he'll bring you luck.
What are they?..
That's disgusting.
Is it really?.. Or is it just what we were taught?
I never knew a girl could learn so much in a museum.
Hi! What have you been doing all day?
I was making a new friend.
Well,
am I a good likeness to my picture?
You're beautiful.
Now we really look like brothers. Wasn't I good to do it?
Maybe. You'll get a sunburnt neck.
Don't lie, Philip Lovell. I can feel how much you like it.
But aren't you worried what people will say?
This isn't New York. There are no "people" here.
And anyway, why do we have to follow any rules?
Pleasure is good and pain is bad
and shame is painless; that's my new philosophy.
Hello! This way!
- Ostorozhno! Ostorozhno! - Otets!
Vot ti, Helene. Ya bispokoil pro tebya.
I brought you a visitor, father.
Sappho. Professor Vladimir Orlov.
I am enchanted.
Sappho. You don't remember by any chance
some of your poetry?
I'm sorry, I don't speak a word of Greek.
Such a pity.
Please.
What are you looking for here in this dirt?
Glory. Twenty-five centuries ago
this was one of the greatest
cities of the civilized world.
Don't laugh. Don't laugh.
Someday your New York too will look like this,
and archaeologists will excavate
the ruins of its skyscrapers,
and speculate over the significance
of a chipped coffee cup.
Father is a follower of Pythagoras.
Heh! Like Pythogoras's triangle?
He invented the musical scale too.
Pythagoras believed that life is like
a wheel that repeats the same story over and over and over as it turns.
And what do you think?
I believe that we can't step into the same river twice.
- Pythagoras said that too. - Thank you. Thank you.
Lemonade?
0 no, no father. Come on. 1 want to show you
where I go when I want to be alone. Goodbye, father.
Helene!
Where are we?
This was once the temple of Apollo, god of the sun.
According to the legend, lovers
tormented by unrequited desire
would sacrifice to Apollo,
and then they would leap off this cliff into the sea below.
If they survived their leap of faith,
they were cured of their passiyn,
and if they didn't survive, then they were healed of their love all the same.
That's some way to fall out of love.
Sappho killed herself here out
of love for a fisherman.
I thought you said she loved women.
Sometimes. If we're lucky enough to love somebody,
who cares if it's a boy or a girl?
Love is what is love.
Aren't you scared? It's a long way down to fall.
I want to know how it feels like to be a bird -
to trust the air.
- Why did you do that? -1 wanted to.
And if you wanted it too, then it's alright.
I've never been with a girl.
Not when you were at school? Didn't you even practise kissing?
It was forbidden. We were watched all the time.
It was forbidden at my school too. But we all did it.
If you like, I can be your girl.
I'm not that sort.
I'm sorry.
Will you still love me when I'm old
and useless for making love?
You're too young ever to be old.
I'm not. I'm already as ancient as beauty herself. This flesh and blood and bone
is just my latest costume.
You never said that you believed in reincarnation.
Maybe I do.
That moth could be me, Phil.
She loved the light too much to fear the flame.
Don't be so tragic.
I've only just started out, but already it's too late to stop.
Stop what?
You. Me. The change. There's nothing I can do about it.
What are you trying to prove?
That at least I'm not a coward.
You're bold and brave and beautiful. There's no need to hurt yourself.
And I thought every man dreamt of marrying a masochist.
They say they make the most submissive wives.
Bottoms up!
Hello.
- Helene? -Shh!
Mother was a concert violinist.
Someday when the Revolution is over,
we will go home, and she will play concerts too.
- Do you play? - Only the gramophone.
I have no talent for anything. Only good taste.
Very expensively purchased.
What are these? They look like fossilised easter eggs.
This is how we begun.
They're making love?
Long ago the first people were whole like this.
Sometimes they walked about on all four legs like animals,
but mostly they just rolled around on all eight limbs like a ball.
So what happened?
Then one day the gods decided to kill them all.
-Why? - Because they were too happy.
However, Aphrodite said she knew
how the people could be made to beg for help
and need the gods.
So then Aphrodite took a strand of her golden hair,
and cut all the people in two,
so that one half became a man and one half became a woman.
But here are two women.
That's how the goddess made the lesbians.
We are all the love-goddess's work.
And then the new half-people
threw their arms around their other half's necks
and locked their mouths together, longing to be whole again.
However, no matter how much they made love,
the half-people still felt incomplete.
So soon the new half-people began to lie and to deceive, and even to disbelieve
that they had a true other half who could make them whole.
And as the half-people begged the gods in heaven for help,
the gods grew fat on their prayers and sacrifices.
This is how love came into the worid.
Hello. I thought I'd never see you again.
Here I am. How do you like me as a boy?
Very much. Let's go for a bicycle ride?
Have you finished playing?
"A bow can not always be strung, or it will break."
"And a man can not always work, or he will go mad."
Those are your words, Sappho.
Slow down! Stop!
You must get so bored on this island.
Sometimes. Don't you?
I get bored of being a girl, that's the truth.
It would be so wonderful to really be a boy,
and to never worry about getting pregnant,
or about bleeding to death every month.
At least you have a man.
- But you said you loved... - What else is a girl to do?
All our men killed one another in the Worid War.
That's me.
That pear hanging hopelessly at the tip of that topmost branch;
overlooked, unpicked.
No, not overlooked, unreached.
Well, let's climb up and get it.
Is it ripe?
- What's that for? - I'll feel freer.
Now promise me that whatever I do you'll not say a word
or move a muscle.
Not even one muscle?
Alright,
one.
Now I'm changing.
I'm your girl, but now I'm your boy too.
- No, Sappho! - You promised me.
We did it, Phil.
- We did it. - Yes. Now we really have done it.
Don't be such a coward, Phil.
- Admit it. You liked it. - Yes. I liked it.
So no matter what happens now,
don't ever say it was all my fault.
How long have you thought about becoming a boy like that?
For years.
It's what my father always wanted - a son and not a daughter.
Don't worry, I won't ever embarrass you in public.
I'll only be your boy at night.
You're crazy, girl, you know that?
Then you must be crazy for loving me.
- Where's everybody going? - Today's a holiday.
Everyday is a holiday.
It's our honeymoon.
Today is a holiday for everybody else too.
It's like the fourth of July. What are they celebrating?
It's the feast of the Virgin.
The way we live, I'd forgotten that the island is Christian.
- Or that we are too. - You maybe.
I never chose to be baptised.
Christianity has destroyed far more than it ever created.
Ah, the happy couple!
Kalispera.
Good afternoon.
Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lovell.
You look so handsome, Mrs. Lovell.
How did you guess?
I'm sorry. What did I guess?
How did you guess that I'm a boy now?
That was just my way of words.
The fish can not become a bird. We all are what we are.
Why can't I be what I like?
If I'd like to be a boy, why can't I become a boy?
- Darling, you promised. Remember? - He guessed that I'm changed.
I don't know how.
Madam was pleased to joke with me, Mr. Lovell.
Madam is more woman than any woman I know.
Yes, I'm sure that was it - a joke.
Give my regards to your father, Mrs. Lovell.
What's the news from home?
The stockmarket and hemlines are both soaring,
Babe Ruth hit a new home run record,
and the mob are making millions importing moonshine from Canada,
because Congress doesn't understand you can't forbid
human nature. Cheers.
I meant, what was in your letters?
The gallery sold two canvases.
That's marvellous.
That's twice as many paintings as Van Gogh ever sold in his lifetime.
How's your father?
He's hoping that I'm with child already.
- Are you? - Of course, not. And I won't be. Not ever.
You don't really want me to get fat
and ugly and to love some vile brat, and not you?
Maybe I would. Someday.
Never!
Hello. I escaped from my father at last.
Helene, my husband Phil.
- Hello. - Hello.
- Please. - Thank you.
Phil's a painter. He's just sold his first two pictures,
but he thinks he's a genius,
and he's determined to make the rest of the worid believe it too.
And what do you think?
I think he's very handsome -
just like an advertisement of a man.
He's a thoroughbred American aristocrat too.
One of his ancestors bought Manhattan from a drunk Indian
for twenty-three silver dollars and a bottle of whisky.
So you're my wife's new friend?
How did you do that?
Practice. He always pulls that stunt when he wants to make friends.
I fell for it too the first time we met.
I have a present for you.
It's Sappho's poetry.
All that survives.
"My mind's in two. I can't decide.
You came, and I wanted you,
you deceived my mind as it blazed with desire..."
And? What comes next?
It's lost. We'll never know.
Perhaps we should decide for ourselves.
Look! It's so medieval.
It's obscene. The old gods suited the island so much better
than these weird Jewish imports.
What's so weird about Christianity?
What's so normal about a bastard
child fantasizing that his mum's a virgin
and his runaway dad's almighty and all merciful Lord God?
- Maybe you're missing the point. - And what is the point?
- Love. - But what kind of love?
Love which thinks of desire as something shameful and forbidden,
and which makes suffering its meaning;
or love which is open and unafraid and free?
That's just it, Phil. Christianity began as a religion
of slaves, and of women,
which in those days was the same thing.
It doesn't suit people like us.
We should believe in desire, and not in virginity;
and in life before death, and not afterwards.
- Let's have our picture taken. - Won't Phil be offended?
Isn't it like trading with the enemy?
So what if he does mind? Photography will soon make painting obsolete anyway.
Never. The camera just sees; it doesn't feel.
I think your husband's so handsome. Is it all right?
What man could ever object to having two giris?
I mean, really, is it all right? With you.
Why not?
We're modern people. Let's all be in love with one another. Really.
I'd like that.
It's so antique, Phil. It's like they're going to make love.
May I confess something terrible?
I'm not a priest.
If you were a priest, I wouldn't tell you.
Is it so bad?
I'm in love with your wife.
I'm in love with my wife too.
I could be in love with you too. Would you mind?
How could you be in love with two people at the same time?
Oh that's easy. It's only in fairy tales that things like that don't happen.
We'll be good together.
Who will?
Sappho and I...
and Sappho and you...
and you and I!
You're all wrong. We're not together.
We're just two people standing in a crowd.
Then let go of my hand.
- Helene! - Father! Sorry.
So how do you like my friend?
She's charming.
But she's in love with you.
She's in love with both of us, if I'm not crazy.
I kissed her, Phil,
but if you kiss her too, I won't feel bad anymore.
How do you like my present?
- Do you really want her? -1 don't know. Yes. As an experiment.
It would be strange and dangerous and pagan and fun.
We promised each other to be faithful, remember?
I'm being faithful in my way.
How can I be true to you if I'm not true to myself too?
And you don't want me to live a lie, do you?
See? I've been recaptured at last.
My father, Professor Vladimir Orlov.
- Mr. Philip Lovell. - I'm pleased to meet you.
Hello!
What's he doing?
Now he ignites the cannon to scare away the Turks for one more year.
That is how the festival of the Virgin always ends.
Please excuse us. We must go.
Antiquity has been waiting two thousand five hundred years,
and it can't wait a moment longer.
- Goodnight. - Goodnight.
Goodnight.
- Come swimming tomorrow. - I'll do that.
Come in. The water's lovely.
Stay still.
Did I scare you?
- You looked like an angel. - Come on.
It seems unfair that we're enjoying ourselves
and that Phil is working.
Every artist must learn to be alone.
And besides, he's not really alone.
He's surrounded by millions of imaginary admirers.
Haven't you ever wanted to be an artist?
Why should I share this moment with some complete stranger
in a picture-gallery or a movie-stall?
I want to keep it all for myself.
But what about when you're dead?
Then I'll be dead.
If your father's right,
we'll both relive this moment in different lifetimes.
Over and over and over.
I'd like that. So much.
Hello.
Would you like a drink? You must be thirsty.
Champagne.
How was your work? Will you show me?
Someday. When you're bored.
Who wants to make a toast?
To Aphrodite, goddess of the sea-foam.
- So what are we celebrating? - Can't you tell?
- Don't I look changed? - Sappho!
We did it, Phil. Now I really am a girl as well as a boy.
I should go.
- My father will be worried. - He knows where you are.
Stay the night.That's a good girl. Now you can kiss Phil.
-1 know you'd like that. - Sappho, no. This is wrong. You're my wife.
Don't be so unsophisticated, Phil.
It's not infidelity if we don't keep secrets from each other, is it?
We're just being generous with our bodies.
Alright. That's enough. Now we've shared round the guilt we can all happy again.
Come dance with Helene, Phil. I'm dying on my feet.
You're not still mad that I kissed you, are you?
Why should you care what I feel? I'm nothing to you.
I told you - I'm in love with you.
Don't talk junk.
Love is someone you'd die for;
not this jazz of lust and egoism for two,
or three, or whatever this number is.
Alright then. I'm in lust with you.
And I'm dancing in your arms. Tell me is that so bad?
Helene!
What are the stakes?
We're playing for the right to share your bed.
I'm trying to win, Phil, but she keeps rolling doubles.
Don't I even get to choose with whom I sleep?
Uh-uh. You're our stud stallion.
We've planned out your diary. We'll take turns at being your girl,
one day at a time, and Sunday will be your day of rest.
This game is just to decide who goes first tonight.
Very funny. Let's discuss something more serious.
I know, Helene. Let's think up a way to end all wars.
O that's easy. We just need to invent a way
for men to give birth to children.
I want you to love Helene;
and you can marry her, if she likes.
I'm not a Turk. I can have only one wife, and not two.
- It's in the rules. - Don't be so boring, Phil.
There are no rules. There's nothing that we can imagine that's not allowed.
Love is what is love.
Love is loyalty too. Don't you even care
if I sleep with other women now?
You can sleep with other boys too, if you like.
- Will you marry my husband? -Yes!
That's perfect. It makes it all so simple.
We can all be married to one another.
- Would you really marry me? - Yes. Are you asking me?
Well, Phil? What do you say?
Don't you understand? No good will come of this game.
The theory might sound fine, but people aren't like that.
We'll get jealous and take sides
and start to hate one another.
You mean, just like when two normal people get married?
Maybe that's how it is, most times for most couples.
But it's the way nature meant it to be.
You see, Helene, that's what makes Phil such a bad artist.
He wants to be liked too much, so he just paints ordinary pictures
that ordinary people will buy.
- Phil! Come back. - I'm going for a walk.
Don't worry. He'll come back soon enough.
-1 was asleep. -1 know.
- What time is it? - We're outside time.
This is always.
I love you.
Why?
Do I need a reason? I just do.
But don't you care about Phil?
Of course I care.
But making love with you feels so right.
But that's just where you're wrong.
This is how giris have fun when there are no men around.
With a man making love is for real.
Don't be so old-fashioned. How can a woman
who has made love to a woman prefer a man?
I'm so hungry.
Let's go back to the house. Maybe Phil has cooked us dinner.
Good evening!
We waited for you until sunset.
Where's Sappho?
She's dreaming that she's Sappho come back to life.
She said she loves me.
O no!
Why don't you leave? There's no future here.
Because right now I'm happy.
You're crazy too.
Let's ask the girl to leave.
We could go home to America and begin over.
Home? This island is my home, Phil.
I can't go back to America, no more than I can be a virgin again.
There are doors once opened that can never be closed.
But all I want is for you to be the girl I married.
Take a look at me as a girl. Are you happy now?
-Yes. - Then I'm happy for you,
because I hate it.
Don't be it then.
Didn't you just say
you wanted me as a girl and not a boy?
Make up your mind, and stop making me tear myself in two.
Don't you understand?
I love you. I just want you to be yourself.
Then here I am.
That's Sappho - was Sappho.
- Will you paint my portrait? - Would you like that?
I was asleep.
The light's gone. I'll finish up tomorrow.
Can I see?
Is that really how you see me?
Yes.
Good evening.
I see you both had a good day.
What have you done to your hair?
Nothing.
It's so stuffy in here.
Would you help me with my coat, darling?
O God.
What have you done?
I had myself painted too.
Ink on skin. That's real art -
it hurts and it shocks and it changes you forever.
But only sailors and whores...
I mean, how can we ever be seen in decent society again?
That's it - we can't.
I've burnt our boats.
Ouzo's so wonderful -
it tastes bittersweet like jealousy.
- And yet it kills the feeling. - You shouldn't drink it like that.
Why not?
- Or do you want me to be jealous? - We've only kissed.
And you said it was alright.
"As lucky as a god I think that man who sits beside you,
hearing, all for him, your whispered small-talk and your laugh of love;
not knowing how it tears my heart in two!
One glance from you and I'm half-dead with fear:
my voice is broken,
terror blinds my eyes, my ears go deaf,
and flames snake through my veins;
a trembling haunts my limbs,
sweat pours from me, my skin is scorched as white as withered grass,
and I know, if I can't have you,
...I'll die."
What was that?
Poetry.
I wrote it long ago,
in another lifetime.
You don't really believe you're Sappho reincarnated, do you?
Of course I'm Sappho.
I always was.
But all we know for sure about the historical Sappho
could be written on a bus ticket.
Her story's just a myth.
Do you know what a wise man once called a myth?
A story that never happened, and yet is always.
- So who fucks whom tonight? - Please, Sappho, don't be vulgar.
Since I'm paying, I think I should decide.
Didn't Phil tell you that? Economically,
I'm the boy here, not the girl.
My husband is penniless.
Of course he comes from one of the right families,
but his father was a gambler who
swindled his mother out of her inheritance.
Then, he blew his brains out in a Paris hotel room.
Don't be offended, Phil;
a girl has a right to know these things before she sleeps with you.
Don't you think you've had enough to drink?
You're right. I've had enough. You can screw Helene tonight.
I can recommend her as a good lover.
Don't say such things.
Why not?
I'm rich. I'm beautiful. Whatever I say, you'll forgive me.
Hey, arn't that so, painter-boy?
Come on, let's get you to bed.
- Goodnight. Try to get some sleep. - I'm sorry, Phil.
Let's go home. There are people there who could help you.
Who, Phil?
I can't even help myself.
It's not even me, it's just my nature.
I am who I am.
I know.
Helene?
I couldn't sleep.
I'm moon-bathing.
On the island they say that's how you go mad.
- You live in this house; that's how. -O Phil!
Sappho was young, rich, charming beautiful,
and in love with you - the perfect wife.
You must have thought you'd won the lottery of life.
I'm not sure they ever print a winning ticket to that racket.
And we all get what we deserve in the end.
Am I what you deserve?
- You're a virgin? - Of course. I was waiting for you.
Good morning. How's your head?
Is that a psychological or a physiological question?
Just a polite one.
Then, politely, it's fine.
Did you make love with Phil?
Yes.
How was it?
Fine.
Well, that's fine. Now we can all be happy.
You're jealous.
Alright. I'm jealous.
But you said it was alright.
I know how to make it alright.
I'm sorry. Don't be annoyed.
I'm not annoyed; but
a few days ago you corrupted me,
and now you act like I'm a pervert when I kiss you.
- Please, let's not quarrel. - We're not quarreling.
Don't you understand? With you I'd take opium.
I love you to death.
Don't say that.
Is it because Phil's a man?
I didn't even know what a lesbian was until I met you.
I'm sorry, Sappho.
I can't make love to you anymore.
Never?
Never.
But you... you promised...
You never meant a word you said to me, did you?
I did, I did. Only then I didn't too.
Sometimes we must have something to learn that we don't need it.
And sometimes we must lose something
to learn that we must have it.
I'd better go.
You seduced the wife just so you
could steal the husband, didn't you?
- And I thought you were my friend! - Goodbye, Sappho.
Hello, Phil. What's wrong?
I don't know. I...
- Where's Helene? - She went home.
I don't love you, Phil. There, I've said it.
I feel so much better now.
- I'm happy for you. -1 never did love you.
That just makes me a bigger fool.
Well, now that's said, we can get on with loving the same woman.
If I buy a pretty little slave-boy to suck your cock will
you leave her to me?
Or can you only be unfaithful to me with a girl?
Sappho, what slave-boys?
0 yes, Abe Lincoln, emancipation, 1 remember...
Where are my paintings? What have you done?
They were so ordinary. I had to do it.
You're just trying to scare me, aren't you?
Tell me you haven't touched them.
Why make such a fuss about a few worthless scraps of cloth?
Didn't I tell you?
Don't you understand? That was my work.
- My soul. - It was a cheap and common soul.
You need a head doctor. You're crazy.
No, I'm not. I'm just different.
And don't hope you can ship me back to America,
and lock me up in an asylum, and strap electrodes to my temples,
and fry my brains to fat in their pan.
I won't let you have my money so easily.
I want a divorce.
Isn't it a bit too late to act the real man, Phil?
I am what you let me become.
I'm so sorry.
If only you knew how much I loved you.
"O Aphrodite on your rainbow throne,
don't let this sorrow tear my heart in two,
but come to me as once you came before, and make me whole:
Come as you came that day you left the clouds,
and in your chariot drawn by white doves, you glided through the ever-swirling air
down to dark earth.
And smiling your immortal smile, you asked:
"So Sappho, now what's wrong? Are you in love, or out, again?
Which girl is it this time? What must I do?
For let her turn and run, soon she'll be back,
and let her taunt and tease, soon you'll see tears,
because like it or not I'll make her yours to love or loathe."
O deathless goddess, come to me again
and ease this pain, all that my hurt heart hopes may happen,
make happen, and be in love always my friend.
Helene!
I will show you that place where I like to be alone.
Kalimera. See? I'm learning Greek.
I brought Phil's paints and brushes.
I haven't seen your husband.
Have you come to say goodbye?
Goodbye?
Aren't you going home to America?
I am home.
This is Lesbos.
I'm a lesbian.
This is my home.
It's so boring. You're welcome to it.
It's like always and never,
the sea breaking against the rocks;
the one always wanting, the other always denying.
It's the hardest thing, loving someone who doesn't love you.
I'm sorry. It's not my fault.
Come and be my girl. To hear your steps,
to see your face, I'd give the worid.
I'm a woman now. I want a husband, children, a home of my own.
You can't give me what I want.
But... it's you!.. How it could be?
Yes, I'm Sappho. I really am. And you're my girl. You really are.
You made me dream I can fly.
No, we can't relieve the past.
But we are disser. I and I... You and you... Over and over and over.
Now I understand. You had made it by yourself.
I'm not a fool. You can't treack me with the fake.
I'm not a lesbian. It's over. I never want to see you again.
Indeed. It was an easy mistake.
The esteemed professor says the coin is very old -
from Sappho's own time.
We will place it in the town museum.
No. It's hers.
She'll need it, to pay the ferryman to the other side.
We should have buried her here. She wanted to stay.
They'll keep her on ice till America.
And her father was most insistent.
Of course, legally you were still her husband, Mister Lovell.
Your wife was rich in her own right.
It was my fault that she killed herself.
There must be rules about things like that.
You should not blame yourself. It was a tragedy.
Her money is yours.
Phil!
Sappho left these for you.
I don't need them anymore.
Why paint a picture if it will only be destroyed?
Or why write a poem if it will only be burnt?
You're an artist. You know that what matters is what you give,
and not what you get back.
You'd better go. You'll miss the boat.
Do you think we still have the right?
- What right? - To be happy.
We?
Yes. We.
"Love - honeybitter, wild, overwhelming -
shattered my limbs..."