O melissokomos (1986)

A bee keeper, Spiros, travels from the north to the south of Greece with his bees to meet the spring.

Director:

Theodoros Angelopoulos

Writers:

Theodoros Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra,

Stars:

Marcello Mastroianni, Nadia Mourouzi, Serge Reggiani

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Spyros
Nadia Mourouzi	...	The Girl
Serge Reggiani	...	Sick Man
Jenny Roussea	...	Spyros' Wife
Dinos Iliopoulos	...	Spyros' Friend
Vassia Panagopoulou
Iakovos Panotas	...	Solder / The Girl / Side Boyfriend
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Stamatis Gardelis
Mihalis Giannatos
Karyofyllia Karabeti
Konstandinos Konstandopoulos	...	(as Kostas Konstadopoulos)
Nikos Kouros
Christoforos Nezer
Stratos Pahis
Dimitris Poulikakos

Storyline

Spiros retires as a schoolteacher, his daughter is married, and he starts his annual journey with his bees to get honey from different areas. In his truck he finds a young girl who has just been abandoned and has no roots. Spiros lets her follow for a day. Seeing her difficulty in getting further hitch-hiking, he takes her back. They will meet and part several times. Later she will say that Spiros is the only one who has ever been kind to her. But his emotions are so restrained that he cannot show anything until a volcanic eruption breaks through. He does not seek serious contact until the eruption makes him drive the car right through the glass wall of the café in which the girl is sitting. She immediately follows him. But after this criminal event they can no longer live at hotels. From the beginning she was willing to sleep with him. But when he finally kisses her, her justified reaction is to repeat "Not in this way!" A friend had a shut down cinema where they could sleep. ...

---

Plot Keywords:

bee | cinema | encounter | suicide | hitchhiker | 

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Details

Country:

Greece France Italy

Language:

Greek French

Release Date:

18 December 1987 (Finland)

Also Known As:

The Beekeeper

Company Credits

Production Co:

Greek Television ET-1, Theo Angelopoulos Films, International Cinema Company (ICC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

140 min 120 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Part II of "A Trilogy of Silence".

---

Connections

Featured in To Each His Own Cinema (2007)

User Reviews

Hauntingly beautiful in its desolation

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.