O melissokomos

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 middle aged teacher retires from his career, dedicates himself to his hobby, and embarks on a journey through Greece with his colony of bees in his lorry. Along the way he picks up a young woman hitch hiker, and a relationship develops between them that explores the depths of personal loneliness and and alienation.

Both Spiros and his young passenger have lost their perspective of the future - he is living in nostalgic reminiscence of the past, while the young girl's life is one of instant gratification, she seems to be aware of neither past nor future. Their inherent inner isolation expresses itself in a series of futile, almost savagely physical attempts at forming real contact with each other, that leaves the viewer with a harrowing picture of disturbed, painful existence.

This is a slow, carefully composed film, a sequence of memorable images, some visually beautiful, others showing the gritty harshness of life. There is a constant shifting between dreams and realities that leaves what actually happens shrouded in doubt, and a moody atmosphere of nostalgia that pervades the whole film.

An exceptional film that should not be missed by patient and observant people interested in the exploration of human feelings.

A beekeeper, Spyros, having just married off his daughter, who seems to be the only person he has any humanly connection with, embarks on a journey with his bees across the country as part of his profession. A journey during which he encounters a free spirited young girl who hitches a ride on his truck.

This movie quite brilliantly explores loneliness from two levels. One, from the aging beekeeper, who with the marriage of his daughter and the separation with his wife, has nothing for himself and seeks to fill this void through revisiting aspects from his past. The second, is from the young girl, whose loneliness is manifested through a destructive and meaningless attachment to whatever brings her instant gratification with no regard for consequences in the future. And the movie explores how the pairing of the two can lead to nothing but despair.

Theodoros Angelopoulos is a filmmaker who speaks through silence, where the unspoken is always the most expressive. And fittingly, the Beekeeper is a movie engrossed in a sense of yearning; either towards something you once had, or for things you think you should have. The tragedy of one's hopelessness in the world of Angelopoulos, lies not in one's choices, but in their unchangeable state of loneliness they so desperately try to escape.

What's not to love here?

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.

"The Beekeeper" (1986) is Theo Angelopoulos' seventh film and features leading man Marcello Mastroianni. The minimal and meaningless plot (following the disintegration of his family, a beekeeper embarks on a trip and has an on/off affair with a young girl) is an excuse for Angelopoulos to indulge in his trademark semi-poetic images of Greek rural and urban landscapes.

A few of the sequences stick out, but most are unremarkable (and there's too much deja-vu about them, all Angelopoulos films are pretty much the same). There is very little action, very little dialog, too much boredom, too much doodling. This is the definition of pretentious art-house pomp.