The Wild Bees

The same postmodern film ailments return... Although the scene is the North Moravian countryside, the emptiness and hopelessness is still the same... The emptiness "outside" of the cinema world, but unfortunately also the emptiness of the film itself. A terrible fragment of dialogues that combines sheer stupidity with fairly decent vulgarity, characters sketched according to the stereotypical scheme "the soul trapped in the environment --- wants to escape / does not want to escape", zero storytelling pace, resignation to epicness with everything it encompasses... I've never had fun with, and I don't like it here either. Yes, the acting performances are decent, but taken as a result, only Michael Pavel Liška has anything to act with, whilst the other characters are rather silent or shouting caricatures in a more refined and intellectual interpretation than offered by Troška's archduke epic Sun, Hay and Strawberries. Bohdan Sláma tried to strike the optimal tone between comedy and drama, but only managed to create a kind of neutral and genderless shouting that reliably lulled me to sleep. The attempt to resolve the "plot" at the dance is no more convincing than the whole process so far. I rank Wild Bees alongside films like Angel Exit, Whisper, Loners, etc. Although they are different environments, the attempt to testify about children their own age is equally stubborn, stylized, awkward... and unsuccessful. (03.12.2004)