Pictured From the film Gay Sex in the 70s
A giant 'A' is suspended over the San Francisco skyline as Bee Season begins, slyly grading both the city and the movie we are about to see. This is an obvious, direct homage to the Christ statue dangling from the helicopter at the start of La Dolce Vita and like Fellini's masterpiece, metaphorical imagery hangs heavy over Bee Season. The use of symbolism in a film about characters obsessed with words and their deeper meanings isn't hard to fathom ( though the giant 'A' is to say the least, a tad forced ) . Nor is it surprising to learn that a movie so in love with this device has been helmed by the gay-straight directing team of Scott McGehee and David Siegel whose previous movies are the allegory ladened but highly entertaining Suture and The Deep End. There's nothing these two like more than the chance to use metaphor and with a layered piece like Bee Season they've hit the jackpot. And like Suture and The Deep End, the heavy stuff is delivered inside a richly entertaining narrative.
The story, scripted by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal ( mother of actors Jake and Maggie ) and based on the novel by Myla Goldberg, concerns the emotional spiral of the upwardly mobile Naumann family. When we first encounter the family it's refreshing to see one in which education and culture are so venerated. Richard Gere plays Saul, a religious studies professor and the family's intellectual and artistic guru. He practices classical duets with his teenage son Aaron ( Max Minghella ) after dinner ( no television or video games in this house ) , mildly criticizes his gorgeous wife Miriam ( Juliette Binoche ) and barely seems to notice 11-year-old Eliza ( Flora Cross ) .
But almost as soon as Eliza, with her Macaulay Culkin lips, timidly confesses that she's won an important spelling bee and is moving on to the next level, everything changes. After seeing Eliza win another round, Saul realizes that his daughter has an amazing gift and he becomes convinced that through her he might reach the ear of God. For instead of seeing dead people Eliza can see words. McGehee and Siegel rapturously show us Eliza's visualizing of the words and going into a kind of trance as each letter makes its appearance. These sequences, the visual high point of the film, are greatly aided by Peter Nashel's musical score.
Once Saul is convinced of Eliza's gift, out come the ancient Kaballah books and intense, secret training for the little girl, who obviously just wants to please her father, commences. Meanwhile, left in the lurch, both Aaron and especially Miriam spin off into separate emotional landmines. The one involving Aaron is silly and superfluous ( and wastes Kate Bosworth ) while Miriam's sidebar is deeply affecting ( and Binoche handles the tricky character beautifully ) . At times the movie seems almost an outtake story from the recent excellent documentary Spellbound that focused on several contestants in the national spelling bee. But Bee Season has the advantage of fiction—and the ability to whip the low-key drama into high melodrama ( hallmarks of both the previous McGehee/Sigel movies ) .
Throughout the film it slowly dawns that Saul is a brilliant and horrifyingly tyrannical manipulator—polite and compassionate though he might seem to be—and that his obsession with the mystic is destroying his family. The family's inviting old house with its ornate, carved, solid woodwork is sturdy but also oppressive for its fragile inhabitants. Even the quiet tyrant Saul is wounded at heart, which Gere easily conveys. Since Unfaithful in 2002 I have liked every performance that Richard Gere has given ( before that there were just two—Internal Affairs and And the Band Played On ) . I don't know what accounts for my newfound appreciation for his performances—perhaps Gere's age and experience have taught him humility ( his early films are overwhelming in their concurrent smirking superiority and deep insecurity ) —or his ability to find roles to showcase his new-found abilities ( like his surprising, delightful turn in Chicago ) . Perhaps it's that his handsomeness no longer seems to be a burden ( as it does—insufferably—in the insufferable Warren Beatty ) or that he's finally comfortable in his own skin ( on camera at least ) . Whatever the reason—he does excellent work here.
I'm not one to grade movies, but when confronted with one that combines the trendy themes of spelling bees and the Kaballah ( aka Madonna's latest 'find' ) —how can I resist? Plus or minus, McGehee and Siegel have crafted an exceedingly intelligent, thoughtful movie that lingers in the air not unlike that giant 'A' with which it begins. Bee Season gets a 'B.'
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Reeling 2005: the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival continues through this Saturday, Nov. 12. In addition to the assortment of great GLBT titles at the fest I've already highlighted ( you can check them out at www.windycitymediagroup.com or my site, www.knightatthemovies.com ) , I've had the chance to preview one more title, Gay Sex in the '70s, which plays at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. This documentary, a record of the unabashed era of free gay love in New York City ( which the film dates from the 12 years between the Stonewall riots in June of 1969 to The New York Times' first report of the 'gay cancer' in 1981 ) is going to be of particular interest for those lucky enough to have experienced the era and the young queers who wonder what it was like. This was the era in which gay men claimed their sexuality loud and proud—and as the survivors of the era interviewed in the movie recall—as often and as publicly as possible.
The film, directed by Joseph Lovett, combines period footage and photographs ( sometimes graphically ) with entertaining and thought-provoking interviews that leave one with mixed emotions. It's exhilarating and daunting at the same time. The non-stop orgy of sex on the Piers, in the backs of the trucks, in the bathhouses, and in every corner available on Fire Island is awfully enticing, but the realization of the aftermath that quickly followed is so terrible that any yearning is quickly wiped away. Or is it? With each recollection and subsequent image of some anonymous hot guy with one of those handle-bar mustaches wearing silk basketball shorts and nothing else, the terrible pangs of nostalgia for the era ( and make no mistake—Chicago had its own gay liberation going on ) returned with a vengeance. Sigh.
Also Thursday night, Nov. 10, is Take The Flame!, a Gay Games documentary, 6:30 p.m. at Columbia College's Film Row Cinema. Filmmaker David Secter will be there for a post-screening Q&A.
Call ( 773 ) 293-1447 or online at www.reelingfilmfestival.org .
