Very disappointing...

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Chanelling both Olmi and Fellini, Alice Rohrwacher's "The Wonders" represents Italian cinema at its best. Like Olmi's "Tree of Wooden Clogs" or more recently, Frammartino's "Le Quattro Volte" it's another classic picture of rural life with a touch of late Fellini thrown in, (in the form of the slightly surreal television competition that gives the film its name).It's about a family of bee-keepers, struggling to make a living in Etruscany. The German father is something of a wastrel, the mother has mostly given up and it's left to the oldest daughter to hold things together. The writer and director Alice Rohrwacher, it was only her second feature film, neither romanticises or sentimentalises their situation and the film works both as a rural idyll and another wonderful addition to the cinema of childhood, (the adults seem to be figures in the background). Intelligent and very moving.

Italian director Alice Rohrwacher's sophomore feature, the Grande Prix winner in Cannes 2014, THE WONDERS is a semi-autobiographical essay, tells the story of an Italian family of beekeepers, the patriarch Wolfgang (Louwyck) is (supposedly) of German descent, with wife Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher, Alice's elder sister) and their four daughters, the eldest one is Gelsomina (Lungu), who is on the cusp of puberty, together they live in the countryside of Etruscan area.Gelsomina is the main help of Wolfgang in apiculture, but once they bump into a TV crew shooting a show called "The Land of Wonders", where a competition of products from local farmers is held up, it can bring handsome prize-money to the hard-up family, it piques her interest while Wolfgang is (inexplicably) strongly against the idea. Meanwhile the family accepts to allow a juvenile delinquent Martin (Huica), who is arranged by the so-called Second Life organisation, to work on the farm in exchange for some income, Martin doesn't speak Italian and seems to be autistic, still and all, he is a boy. Wolfgang's undisguised preference of Martin over her in beekeeping, sores the sensitive Gelsomina, and she fills an application on behalf of their family to compete in the TV show without telling anyone.Drama, accident, emotion and mystery are intermittently jammed into Rohrwacher's poetic and fly- on-the-wall approach of the rural life she is familiar with. Sceneries are primarily shoot in available light, an opening gambit with a long take sustained only by the headlights of approaching vehicles out of the pitch black, manifests her aesthetic philosophy and sets the overall tonality, so no picturesque bucolic landscapes to take viewers' breathe away, instead, Rohrwacher painstakingly taps into the ethereal aura of Etruscan myth, setting the TV competition inside a cavern, forging Martin's unexplained disappearance in the necropolis area (later hinged with the equally unexplained affinity between him and Gelsomina) and the finale, an existential allegory (the ill- fitting camel gets up and moves out of the frame, so is their family workshop, cannot stay in business in the climate). All burnish the picture with a primitive sheen which is so out of tune with our era, and the ultimate sentiment is uniquely personal.Defying empathy and involvement, THE WONDERS is not ambitious to tell a nostalgic story, it merely introduces the vignette of a family once lived on the farm, there was a girl who has bees coming out of her mouth and a boy accompanies her with a melodious whistle.As an art-house project, it is disheartening to notice Monica Belluci's thankless participation here as the beautified anchorwoman Milly, sporting a gaudy wig and being idolised by amateur child actors, it is a frustrating strategy of celebrity placement, a false advertisement, which is as shameless as dragging Juliet Binoche into her five-minutes presence in blockbuster GODZILLA (2014). There is some mettle wanting in this case, as a young female writer/director, Alice Rohrwacher has a long and tough battle to fight as a trailblazer for women in the ultra- exist Italian film industry.

I begin by saying it was a sweet little Italian movie. It is not here to entertain you, but to give an alarming message. The world's human population is growing rapidly, but within, the farmer's counts are shrinking. Hunger will be one of the future's biggest concerns to deal. This film is about a farmer family that depicted from the perspective of what's causing for the people like them to disappear. There are a very few movies on this theme, in that, all the farmer's movies won't illustrate harvesting and hardworks rather focuses on romance, revenge and other subplots. I think this was true to what it was promised and you would feel glad watching this if you are capable to realise the facts.A 12 years old girl, Gelsomina, with her parents and three younger sisters lives in a rural Italy. They are the bee farmers, living with a strict order of the life, especially when it comes to the profession. And this story was told from the Gelsomina's viewpoint about everything she and her family goes through. After her father who got no son, she has to carry on the family's tradition to the next generation. She's absolutely on it as she's naturally gifted and stronger than anyone in the family, including her father who's no match for her. Moreover, she's already running the family with moral. But when they reach a crossroad, some unexpected decisions have to be made which is basically the remaining portion."You would need a slave. Instead of 4 daughters."I can't say it is a must see, because it is still a movie and looks for an opportunity in between to amuse you. Either, it is not afraid to unfold the reality, that's the best of this film. It had an amazing cast, but I don't know anyone of them, of course, except Monica Bellucci in a cameo. Cinematography was great, they were not trying to seduce the viewers with the beautiful countryside scenic rather presenting as it is. Beside the film let you know about bee keeping and honey extraction. It is not an easy job, thinking bees do all the work and we just snatch it using protection costume. But surrounding environment and all matters. There's no CGI, some of the dangerous scenes were shot under the guidance of the real pros with a specialised documentary crew.It proves a coming-of-age story can also be told in this manner. Urbanising, hunters, tourism influx, name it... all these are affecting peace in the rural life. This film covers most of the factors in a simple fashion, It was not that easy for everyone to understand the end part as it contained two way meaning, literal and metaphor. One is a report card for the actuality and the other one is a cinematic conclusion. Overall, it tackles on the matured contents and children are the part of it, especially the last quarter all about them. And finally, everyone won't desire for a movie like this, but IMO certainly worth spending time for it.8/10

I have to say the plot of "Le meraviglie" or "The Wonders" did not interest me that much, so I probably would not have decided to give this film a watch if it wasn't for the Jury Grand Prize win in Cannes this year, which made me a bit curious. In the end it was a good decision. The film did not disappoint, but I have to say it did not wow me either.All the actors give decent performances, the MVP possibly is Sam Louwych as the lead character's father. However, he also has the most material to work playing a hot-tempered honey farmer. The boring agricultural life becomes a lot more interesting for him, his wife and four daughters when Gelsomina (the girl in the center of the story) decides to sign up the family for a TV show where they can possibly present their products. And if that was not already enough, the father decides to employ a boy with a criminal past in order to help with the bee farming. Other than that, there is the usual struggles you may expect the family to trouble in their hard work: pesticides, rain storms and accident with the dangerous machinery. The only thing I completely disliked about the film where the two scenes when Gelsomina has a bee in her mouth, on one occasion with the boy, on the other occasion at the TV show production. To me, these felt really unpleasant to watch. This may come from my general dislike of stinging insects, but I also felt that these really did not fit the tone of the rest of the film. Other than this minor criticism, I think the movie is worth a watch. It is not too often that Italian films make it here, so I am glad I took the chance.