Rent The Beekeeper (1986)

He Chases His Spark, She Gets Smeared With It - The Beekeeper review by griggs

This starts like it means business. I don’t think anything else here hits as hard as those first fifteen minutes, watching an old beekeeper drift back through half-remembered places — quiet, aching, the kind of opening that demands your undivided attention.

Then Marcello Mastroianni’s character picks up a much younger drifter, and The Beekeeper swaps grief for a plot we’ve all seen sting before: older man chases his spark, ends up smearing it all over someone else. Except here nobody gets rescued — they just rot together, like fruit left in the same bowl. The camera’s a bit too into it as well, lingering on these scenes like it’s forgotten what the film was supposed to be about. Once you notice that, the whole thing stops feeling sad and starts feeling indulgent.

A gorgeous first reel, trapped inside a so-so film.

From a bygone era - not in a good way - The Beekeeper review by DJ

An unhappy combination of visually unappealing, tedious and clichéd narrative and some very unpleasant scenes - I wonder why I stuck with it to the end. Actors who failed to project their feelings or the nature of their relationships to the audience, leading to actions without apparent motivation or cause. Some 'sex' scenes that contrived to be, at the same time, pornographic and un-arousing - deeply dubious in a post-#Metoo context. I'd quite like to read the young actor's perspective on the filming of those scenes - might she share have a lot in common with Maria Schneider? Even the beekeeping activity is factually dubious. My advice is don't waste your time

thought provoking and very sad - The Beekeeper review by pete b

I'd seen this film back in the 80's, and it had stuck in my mind though I subsequently forgot the title/director. Came across the work of Angelopolous when I watched his 'The Weeping Meadow'. Re-watching The Beekeper I found it compelling, Mastroianni is phenomenal in his playing of a desperately sad and unhappy late middle aged chap, for whom life has clearly gone wrong, or he's got wrong. And of course Angelopolous likes the long take, always a winner with me.