The Bee Keeper

Angelopoulos' odyssey of a middle-aged man in the grip of terminal emptiness has a stately pace and a shortage of event or information that are a lot to take. It's always raining, usually evening, and the settings are mainly petrol stations and sad rooming houses in Greek tank towns. Spyros (Mastroianni) resigns his job as a schoolmaster, leaves his wife, and drives off with his beehives to follow the pollen route. A teenage hitchhiker (Mourouzi) attaches herself, bumming fags and food, and even using his room to score with a passing soldier. Spyros remains uncomplaining, wordless and lifeless throughout. They finally get it on in a neglected cinema, which not only fails to buck up his ideas, but appears to confirm his disenchantment, because the next day he surrenders to death by bee-sting. A muffled, deeply interior film.