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Clarence Tsui

Bee Season

Starring: Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Flora Cross, Max Minghella

Director: Scott McGehee and David Siegel

The film: Given its emphasis on one of the most intrinsic facets of Jewish mysticism - gematria, or the numerology of the alphabet - it's no surprise that Bee Season would  intrigue some audiences.

However, the major question that viewers would raise about Bee Season is: Why cast Richard Gere as a strident Jewish theologian and Kabbalah expert?

Gere's underwhelming turn as Saul Naumann - a patriarch with a fanatical fixation about his daughter's progress in spelling competitions - has certainly undermined the project. His monotonous meanderings about 13th-century thinker Abraham Abulafia is dismaying,  and does a huge disservice to what is mostly a mesmerising film.

A sense of ethereality permeates Bee Season, adapted by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mother of Jake and Maggie) from the Myla Goldberg novel. The metaphysical aspect of the storyline - that language and more specifically words can lead   us to connecting with God and destiny - contrasts with the meltdown in interpersonal relationships that this Sisyphean pursuit of such an eternal truth would generate.

The film illustrates how the apparently harmonious relations within a middle-class Jewish family are ruptured when the sixth-grade daughter Eliza (Flora Cross)  is discovered to be a gifted  speller.

The film's title refers to spelling bees, the  American competition  in which children  attempt to outdo each other by spelling increasingly difficult words.

The way Saul shifts his attention from his former favourite, elder son Aaron (Max Minghella), begins a chain of events that sends both Aaron and his mother, Miriam (Juliette Binoche),  on a search for a compass in their lives, which  were previously dictated by the controlling Saul.

The extras: Beyond the conventional cast interviews and deleted scenes, the key of the DVD release - and also in understanding the  film - is Essence of Bee Season, which brings together the views of the film from Jewish and Christian scholars. The visual panache of the filmmakers can be seen through the Cutting Room Floor featurette, which weaves outtakes into one poetic piece, underlined by the film's mesmerising score.

The verdict:  As with many films outside the American mainstream - the works of artists-turned-directors Mike Mills and Miranda July come to mind - Bee Season unravels dysfunctional suburban lives with poise and subtlety.  Although its mystique looks contrived with its myriad  loose ends,  Bee Season is inventive enough to warrant  a sitting.



Bee Season