L'apiculteur

This film didn't really work for me. After reading the, mostly, wonderful accolades above I was expecting better things from this movie but finished up being disappointed. It wasn't the inactivity either. I like Bella Tarr films so I am used to long takes with not very much happening. Another reviewer of a Tarr film recently noted that you could write a masters thesis on what is not going on, in between the bits of dialog. Okay, this is kind of cutesy but I know what he meant. There is a tension or at least a relationship between the characters and sometimes a "drama of the moment" in the "what will happen next", sense. With the Spyros character there was the feeling that during his moments of stoic inactivity (of which there was a lot), there was nothing going on inside. It was just a complete blank-out, no drama; no tension from silent inner feelings directed towards another, just nothing. The same scene could have been shot to equal effect without him being there. I was waiting for someone to come up to him and shout "Hello in there", in Greek of course or to give him a much needed kick in the seat of his pants. Whilst I am on the subject of pants, I would have reckoned that someone with a grown up son and two grown up daughters would have at least known that you have to open them in order to have sex. Any spotty teenager on his maiden voyage would not have acted in such an inept way. All the incidents except one in this film happened to Spyro not because of him. That one was when he drove his wagon through the front of a restaurant in order to get the girl and that came over as more of a student prank than an act of desperation.

But, hey, I hear you say, this is a film that deals with the problems of loneliness and isolation and I should be more sympathetic to his situation. I understand this point of view however it is difficult to empathize with someone who has turned his back on a wife that obviously still had feelings for him; a family he could draw round him but who are now indifferent to him and friends throughout the country who he leaves at the first opportunity. Even the girl, who was selfish, never really did anything bad towards him. Spyro had no warmth within him and never did anything to gain respect. In the end even his beloved bees turned against him.

In my opinion the high ranking Artificial Eye distributor has scored an own goal with this one but the enthusiasm of others will probably vindicate them.

It's strange to imagine, truly, that in a look shared above a tray of broken dishes, a person can radiate such an overwhelming sense of guilt, of emptiness and quiet sorrows that the entirety of the film could be unraveled but from that single, wordless glance.

Marcello Mastroianni helms The Beekeeper (O Melissokomos), a low-key yet profound picture set in a contemporary Greece, one fraught with winding highways and steeped in violet mists, littered throughout with fragments of a ravaged, not-so-distant past. It is a tale of being adrift, of reminiscence, shot in hazy shades of dawn and told through lingering eyes and bursts of anguished emotion.

Spiros (Mastroianni) rides along the pale hills, tending to his beehives strewn across the country, washed in silent resignation, lost along the border of nostalgia and despair. A young girl (Nadia Mourouzi) travels at his side, a girl who's just as lost as he, equally resigned to that inexorably cruel fate of simply not knowing.

It's a quiet piece, but whenever the players opt to break the silence, it rings lyrical and true. There is little music, though when it spirits past those lonely, crumbling streets, it's haunting, strange and powerful.

Throughout these one hundred and twenty minutes of mystical, almost ethereal and yet still so fundamentally real images I am enraptured, completely, fully succumbed to the beauty of this vague and poetic journey. A masterfully crafted film, one that captures these illusive thoughts and gestures with poignancy, feelings that are so impossible to describe yet nevertheless permeate our lives through every restless, stifled hour.

Wonderfully poetic movie, the images of which (gas stations, industrial grounds, and lots of rain) stick in one's mind. This film about a middle aged man searching for some meaning in his otherwise empty life is made the more poetic and unforgettable by the magnificently melancholic music of Eleni Karaindrou.

It is amazing that it is only on two occasions that the great Greek director Theo Angelopoulos [1935-2012] chose to cast major film stars of international reputation in his films. In 1995, he directed "Ulysses' Gaze" with one of American cinema's greatest actors Harvey Keitel. The Beekeeper/O Melissokomos was his first film with a major star,Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni who is known to all those who appreciate great cinema. It is interesting to note that in both these films, Theo Angelopoulos has extracted unglamorous performances from these two actors who are known to ordinary cinema audiences as mere 'film stars'. The decision to cast Marcello Mastroianni must be viewed as an artistic challenge for Angelopoulos as he was already a middle aged man when he was paired against a young girl in a film about hopelessness, uselessness wherein one comes to realize the futility of one's drab existence. Through his film about a man and his passion for bees, Theo Angelopoulos teaches us that happiness is fleeting. One learns the most crucial lesson in life that even though bees are sweet for honey their bite is extremely dangerous. This is precisely the lesson which the film's protagonist experiences after a series of minor incidents which happen in his life when he travels across Greece in the company of a young girl. The notion of "So near yet so far" appears to be this film's leitmotif as even though the protagonist stands near his wife for a photo shoot, discontent is always visible on their faces. This notion makes its second appearance when the protagonist meets a young girl who is hitch hiking across Greece. Lastly, no film director has attempted to show the love felt by a young girl for an old man in an extremely personal manner as depicted by Angelopoulos in "The Beekeeper" as mutual respect is the key element in this film.One could also state that the young girl allowed herself to be treated well by the old man. This is the reason why the young girl feels that the old man is the only person who has treated her well.

A sad and extremely poignant movie from the unique, and sadly late, director Theodoros Angelopoulos. Is there such thing as the male menopause? Yes, there is, and Angelopoulos in this movie, portrays the subject through his main character with unique emphasis on the basics of human emotions of infinite sadness, loneliness, futile aspirations, rejection, desperation, ....