Shock Therapy R
The narrative is authentic. The order of one's occupation defines to a character fault. Innocence is both lost and ne'er re-found in the progression of things. In fact, the incompatibility of one's definition juxtaposed with wanton youth, is that unmet organism and that proverbial sting of a thousand bees 🐝. The undoing of lifelong order is more than the character can handle and it's vicious contempt is deadly. Was the character tapping out a Morse code signaling his end? All of the signs were obvious to his aged friends and grown offspring. The only one who didn't know the ending, was the sore mortal dedicated to everything and everyone but himself. But will it strike the young antagonist as well? That's the damnable mystery, without an answer for just short of one's natural mortal existence. Society tends to define all, if not most, in time.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
11/05/22
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Audience Member
Theodoros Angelopoulos' The Beekeeper is an extraordinary film, in sense of mood, feelings and sexual attractions, a real drama film to put it straight. This film also confirms Marcello Mastroianni as one of the greatest actors in the history, this is the proof that he can handle any role in any kind of languages, Italian, French, English and now Greek.
The aging beekeeper, Spyros (Marcello Mastroianni), seems to have lost contact with human emotions, and he is slowly but surley slipping away from his family, his wife. He doesn't even seems very excited about his daughters wedding. So he leaves them all in order to continue his annual journey transporting his beehive to the south of Greece. On his journey he picks up a teenage girl (Nadia Mourouzi) who's without a home, and have nobody. Spyros does only this out of generosity. But she on the other hand begins to look up to him as a father, and it begins to get sexuals between the old man and the young girl.
The Beekeeper is an amazing dramatic film, with the right tone and spot on right environments and realistic cinematography. It's also incredibly sexy and erotic to put straight, with the passionate love scene between Mastroianni and Mourouzi, and all the clips before that shows her in any kind of tempting positions. Mastroianni delivers one of his greatest performances. He's so naturalistic in his behavior that it's some times hard to bereave that this is acting, it's mostly because he's character is silent and that makes us as an audience have to do the job ourselves by going into his head and figure out what he's thinking. I really enjoyed this movie, it really made me think about life and people, and I also enjoyed the erotic parts. Thumbs up.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
At it's core 'The Beekeeper' is a film about Spyro, a middle-aged man who is looking for some form of meaning in his empty life. After his daughter's wedding in which he is seen silently weeping, Spyro journeys across the country in search of a warm climate where his bees can flourish. Through barely any dialogue, the opening sequence teachs the viewer everything they need to know about Spyro. Interactions between Spyro and his wife, where no dialogue is spoken, show us a serious lack of communication and a self despair that burns deep inside of Spyro. Spyro is stuck in a state of nostalgia where nothing in the present can match the past, and the future essentially doesn't even exist to him. Through his journey thereare a few shifts between dreams and realities, really putting the viewer into Spyro's psyche and leaving in doubt what is actually real or not. He meets a young girl who has no direction in life and really just lives in the present. These two form a strange relationship which consists of attempts to express their internal isolation by performing bizarre almost savage physical contact, trying to feel some form of human connection. These sequences really illustrate the deep, mental anguish which Spyro is constantly feeling. They even become intimate later in the film but once again it feels manufactured, like Spyro is trying to re-live his youthful past through this significantly younger woman. 'The Beekeeper' is a beautifully poetic film about a man who has lost complete perspective on his life. It's a film that is very rewarding for people who have the patience and interest to watch a film that is all about the exploration of human emotion.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Together with his other masterpiece "Eternity and a Day" this is the most accessible movie by Angelopoulos that I've seen so far. Here the takes are not as long as they are in some of his other work and the storyline - which focus on a man who is coping with suppressed sexuality and the sad inability to love his family; A man who is putting life behind him - is both raw and emotional in a more direct way than it is the case with the epic "The Travelling Players", just to mention one of his best known works.
Again and again it seems that Angelopoulos is capable of composing some of the most brilliant stories told in cinema today. That is definitely "The Beekeeper" anyway: Pure brilliance. Here there is nothing forced - neither in character development or aesthetics. Instead of caring about manufactured cinematic structure and plot it seems that also this movie lets life dictate the narrative. So even when Angelopoulos is accessible he is still one of the most genius and most original of all directors. This is essentiel viewing.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The weight of loneliness is more present here than any other Angelopolous film I've seen. Between a man who is so haunted by his past and his suppressed, incestuous love for his daughter, and a young woman with a memory of fish, whose life makes sense only in "the moment", there is an impossibility of connection and a deep sense of despair. I'm not a big fan of Marcello Mastroianni, but he totally abandons himself here, delivering one of his best performances since Fellini's 8 1/2. Beautiful cinematography as usual but Eleni Kariandrou's music wasn't really present this time. It was too light for the film's mood.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Depressing even by Angelopoulos's standards. It's not one of his best films, though, as the psychological intimacy and metaphorical tale of incest ultimately comes cross as dramatically conventional which is something Angelopoulos almost never is.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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