Les mots retrouvés

Imagine growing up in a family of academics, musicians, and Jewish mystics. When 12-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) wins both the district and regional spelling bees, her father, Saul (Richard GereJewish mysticism, begins to tutor her daily. Not only is he preparing her for the state spelling bee competition, but Saul is also training his daughter to be the mystic he wasn't able to become. Bee Season is not only a movie about meditation, but it is also itself a meditation. This family is consumed with finding God, but they all look outside of the family to find it, and in the process, the family falls apart. Eliza's older brother Aaron (Max Minghella) is so jealous that his sister is getting all of the family's attention that he goes off and joins a Buddhist cult, and everyone in the family is so focused on their own problems that no one notices the mother (Juliette Binoche) going slowly insane! Bee Season is transcendent and thought-provoking, and it even makes me want to go out and look for God.

Since I have not read the novel upon which Bee Season is based, I cannot evaluate the film's interpretation of the book. It seems, however, that there is more occurring within the characters of this story that is not stated or developed within the screenplay. And unfortunately more needed to be conveyed, and developed in order for this film to affect the audience in a useful way. Plot Summary: The film is about an intellectual, dynamic family. Eliza (Flora Cross) enters a school spelling bee, wins, and soon realizes she has the ability to visualize words and their correct spelling. She says she feels and sees the word "talking to her." Her father, Saul Naumann (Richard Gere), a professor of Judaic Mysticism at a San Francisco university later decides that Eliza has the unique ability to speak to God. He becomes preoccupied with nurturing and developing this "gift" within his daughter, and in the process falls out of touch with his son Aaron (Max Minghella), who becomes disillusioned with his faith in Judaism and rebels against the influences of his father. Aaron begins studying Buddhism after meeting a female romantic interest who is sympathetic to his expressed feelings of emptiness and detachment. Saul's Wife, Miriam (Juliette Binoche), struggles with her own detachment from reality as she continues to mourn the death of her parents who died in an accident when she was young girl. My Analysis: Like some of the characters in the film, I too left the film somewhat empty, or unfulfilled. I wanted to know more about what was going on with this family. The relationship between Gere's character and his son is somewhat familiar -- a son rebels against a father who is too strongly pushing his faith and interests. This form of rebellion seems typical of most adolescents. The mother and daughter share the unusual relationship; both of whom seem to possess certain supernatural powers. While it is the daughter's power to visualize and spell that is the focal point of the film, it may well be a similar ability that drives her mother to mental illness. The relationship between them should have been developed more, however. I wanted to know what the mystical-supernatural ability meant, but the screenplay doesn't explain much, and this is frustrating. In addition, when it becomes apparent that Miriam is suffering from a severe mental disorder and continues to mourn the death of her parents, I questioned why her husband was so utterly unaware of her suffering as it had been going on for some time. He was an intelligent man who had great concern for the welfare of his family, and it didn't seem to fit his character. The film might merely be about a domineering father and the influence his beliefs have over his family. But I'm hoping it's more than that. The story goes to pains to make it clear that there is a very real supernatural element at work here, but the film doesn't do enough to convey what this means and why it's important. I appreciate movies that are efficient, that don't hold my hand through everything and that give me credit for making inferences to tie a storyline together, or even leave the story purposely ambiguous so as to allow for interpretation, but in the case of the Bee Season, the subject matter is too abstruse and the story is too underdeveloped. I could not reach a satisfactory understanding of what occurred and why it was important. The acting was strong, however. Binoche, Gere and company make the best of an underdeveloped script. The quality of the acting makes the problems with the script even more frustrating because it seems like this film could have been much more.

"Bee Season" is much better than the trailer foretold and almost surmounts a central miscasting to re-interpret the strongest aspects of Myla Goldberg's novel, which my Fiction Book Club had thoroughly enjoyed discussing.

The film blends a family drama with two popular interests, the Kabbalah and spelling bees. Unfortunately, the gimmicky celebrity populism of the former is accentuated with the wincible casting of Richard Gere as the father who is supposed to be a Talmudic scholar with a dissertation on Jewish mysticism.

When he was shown giving a simplistic lecture at multicultural UC Berkeley on the theme of tikkun olam (repairing the world) that is echoed throughout the film, I felt the only way I could accept him in the role at all would be to assume he was a gentile intro to comparative religion teacher, even though he has lines denigrating Jews who chant Hebrew in synagogue without understanding the language and about inspiring his French Catholic wife to convert. He does put across well how the patriarch bullies the family emotionally and controls them with food, rigid standards and attention, like a more subtle Great Santini, but he lacks the pale intensity of the obsessed and just seems another NPR-listening, Bach-duet playing intellectual.

Until the involving climax, though, there are ironically very little Hebrew numbers as letters to guide the secrets of the universe in the movie when the dad takes his spelling wunderkind daughter under his wing to teach her the power of language, but it does lead to the most powerful scenes in the film of letting us see what's going on inside her head. Flora Cross in her debut is the anti-Dakota Fanning in absolutely convincing us that she is in thrall to a supernatural gift and that her kabbalistic studies, which are usually forbidden to young people for their psychological dangers, are opening her up to hidden reservoirs of perception. It is completely exceptional that special effects can be so extraordinary and important to an intellectual family story, but they are not only enchanting but demonstrative. Cross naturally communicates how she intuitively is in touch with a force that her father can only enthusiastically theorize and not quite capture himself.

The sharp editing is superb at clarifying cross-currents from the book, and perhaps making it much easier, perhaps a bit too simplistically, to see how each member of the family is seeking the face of God in their own way. The son, dark heart throb in the budding Max Minghella, is, as usual, seduced by a bland blonde shiksa, Kate Bosworth, though with an unusual rebellious religious twist that here seems natural to the Berkeley environment. But then his Jewish religious education seemed pretty random.

The editing and the special effects also marvelously contrast the paternal theme with the other fractured visual theme of the kaleidescope that the mother favors. While Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal's adaptation (and it's nice to see Maggie and Jake's mom's work again) makes the details of the mom's increasingly disturbed activities more incomprehensible than in the book, Juliette Binoche superbly adds a fragility and depth to the role beyond the novel and makes her heartbreakingly sympathetic.

The conclusion is more emotional, if more pat, than in the book, though some interpretation is still possible.

In making the intellectual visible, the film also uses library settings as an inner sanctum very warmly.

Nice to hear the band Ivy on the soundtrack and over the credits.

In Bee Season, a film by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, a suburban Oakland family discovers meaning and purpose in the Kabbalistic concept of tikkun olam, translated as repairing the world. Adapted by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (Running on Empty) from the novel by Myla Goldberg, the film explores the subject of Jewish mysticism and its effect on a dysfunctional family. Relying on the teachings of Isaac Luria, a 16th century Jewish Kabbalist, Berkeley Professor Saul Naumann (Richard Gere) instructs his students that God created the world by forming vessels of light but, as He poured the light into the vessels, they shattered and became countless shards. Thus, humanity's task is to free and reunite the scattered Light and restore the broken world. Naumann is an intellectual who reaches out to God but cannot connect with his family and they mirror the broken shards rather than the Divine Light.

Saul is close to his musically gifted son Aaron (Max Minghella) with whom he shares a love of music but ignores his 11-year old daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) until her talent for spelling is recognized and she wins local and regional spelling bees. He takes advantage of the opportunity to become closer to her by training her for the national championship and encouraging her to explore the mystical states that he only relates to conceptually. He sees in Eliza the potential to put into practice the teachings of the Kabbalah scholar Abulafia that enlightenment can be achieved through alignment of letters and words. He tells her that "many cultures believe that letters are an expression of a special, powerful energy; that when they combine to make words, they hold all the secrets of the universe." Yet as Eliza and her father delve further into their studies, they forget to look around and see that the people around them are in trouble.

Aaron rejects his father's teachings and turns to Hinduism at the encouragement of a young woman named Chali (Kate Bosworth). He pretends to go on a weekend camping trip but instead dons orange robes and spends the time at a retreat for Hare Krishna followers, much to his father's displeasure. Unfortunately, the story treats his decision to explore a different faith as an adolescent lark rather than a legitimate spiritual quest and we never discover his true reasons for his interest. Meanwhile, Saul's wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche) has flashbacks of a car accident that killed her parents. She takes the phrase Tikkun Olam – "to repair the world" - literally and steals small glittering objects from people's homes in order to reconstruct the world but her own world begins to spiral downward. The sub-plots are not well developed however, and the characters' behavior is insufficiently motivated to be plausible.

The heart of the film lies in the transformation that is taking place within Eliza, dramatized in the spelling bee competitions. Although she has never seen or heard of a particular word before, she is able to visualize it in different ways by concentrating with her eyes closed, depicted on screen by clever special effects. We follow the gifted speller as she moves through one competition after another and marvel at how she is able to remain centered while the world around her is crumbling. The acting is credible and Cross is a promising newcomer but Gere emotes too much personal warmth and "star quality" to be fully convincing as a self-centered, emotionally detached Jewish scholar.

Bee Season has a potent message in so far as it celebrates an individual's use of personal power to alter their experience of reality. The filmmakers, however, fail to clarify what the film is trying to say. Various threads compete for attention: Eliza's personal experiences of God, Saul's Kabbalistic teachings, Aaron's turn to Eastern religion, and Miriam's sickness, but none are sufficiently developed to make a coherent statement. Even the ending that is supposed to bring some resolution leaves us scratching our heads. Bee Season is a well-intentioned film that tackles an important subject but ultimately fails to fully explore the depth of its characters or the true meaning of its message, and I found its suggestion that a family can love God but not each other to be incongruous.

Okay, I can see how this film got lost in the shuffle- it's a quiet odd smart film that deals with quiet odd smart people. But it's worth seeing.

The acting is wonderful, the children and Juliette Binoche are magnificent. And Richard Gear was lovely too, although I thought miscast. Not having read the book, though, perhaps he was perfectly cast, but I found him so handsome that I couldn't believe he had these problems! Shallow on my part, I know, but there it is.

The children and the complex rich story carry this film, and they do it well. It was photographed lovingly, and the music was great too.

But as a Juliette Binoche fan, she remains the main reason to see this gem.