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Le Meraviglie (2014)

Drama | 110 minutes
3,22 165 votes

Genre: Drama

Duration: 110 minuten

Alternative title: The Wonders

Country: Italy / Switzerland / Germany

Directed by: Alice Rohrwacher

Stars: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck and Alba Rohrwacher

IMDb score: 6,7 (6.584)

Releasedate: 22 May 2014

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UK

This movie is not available on US streaming services.

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Le Meraviglie plot

An Italian beekeepers family, consisting of mother, four children and at the head of the German father Wolfgang, lives withdrawn in the countryside of Umbria. Life is hard for Wolfgang: he wants to continue the age-old beekeeping tradition, but the local government is making increasingly higher demands on responsible honey. His eldest daughter Gelsomina recognizes his problems and feels called to assist her father. But Gelsomina is also a young woman, who is introduced to the temptations of heaven and earth – especially when a film team arrives to shoot a commercial for the 'Wonders of the Country' contest.

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avatar van eRCee

eRCee

  • 13441 messages
  • 1978 votes

Very beautiful. Le meraviglie is first of all a brilliant role of Maria Alexandra Lungu as the 14-year-old Gelsomina. The balance between girl and woman is perfectly captured in her character and in Lungu's interpretation (especially the body language, very good).

In addition, I think that Le meraviglie is not at all the typical "simple family drama" that you might expect. The beekeeper's life is not presented idyllically enough, the problems are too diverse and the denouement is kept too veiled.
As Verhoeven already notes in the first post, more and more special elements creep into the film towards the end. The entire television show (with a nice role by Monica Belucci) is already grotesque, the camel absurd and the ending somewhat alienating.

I think that to understand the final shot, we need to go back to the beginning: La meraviglie opens with three cars arriving at the beekeeper's house through the night, after which searchlights are shone on the facade. The "secret" mentioned at the end will be Martin, who was found by Gelsomina, after which the family hid him in the house from the carabinieri to avoid being sent to a juvenile detention center. The suggestion is that he was eventually discovered, and that Gelsomina's family had to give up their rural existence and move away from the area.

It doesn't matter much, but this is my interpretation. Otherwise just a beautiful film in which characters are evoked that nestle in your memory. The tip from Mochizuki Rokuro above is noted.

PS. That shot through the dust clouds of the car, so simple but oh so beautiful!

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van De filosoof

De filosoof

  • 2449 messages
  • 1664 votes

A beautiful film. It is a typical arthouse film in which nothing really happens and if the magic, which is sprinkled over the film like fine dust, does not work you will be bored to death, but for me the magic did work and I continued to watch with fascination. This also has to do with the fact that all sorts of things can happen all the time - from whether the bees will sting to what the 'dangerous' boy will do to the girls and the expected anger of the father about the wasted honey - which keeps the film exciting but the strong point of the film is that it always goes in exactly the opposite direction than you would expect. The main character is the teenage girl Gelsomina who not only represents the transition from girl to woman but also the transition from the traditional, isolated countryside (her father) and modern life (the TV show that comes along) and what really happens is that tradition (through Gelsomina) loses out to modernity: the father gradually loses everything - from his company to his daughter and boy helper.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van mrklm

mrklm

  • 11374 messages
  • 9897 votes

Spanish rural drama with magical-realistic elements about an Italian-German family that has settled in a dilapidated farmhouse in Tuscany, where beekeeper Wolfgang [Sam Louwyck] has set up a beekeeping business with his wife Angelica [Alba Rohrwacher]. The central character, however, is the eldest daughter Gelsomina [Maria Alexandra Langu], who is at an age where she is starting to worry about the survival of the beekeeping business. She tries to persuade her parents to participate in a reality show with the popular presenter Milly Catena [Monica Bellucci], but against their better judgment they continue to believe that they can manage without that help. More atmosphere than story, with Rohrwacher letting the young cast (Gelsomina has two sisters and a brother) play completely naturally.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original