Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders — which opens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on March 27 — is as naturalistic as the sweet, liquidity product its main characters harvest daily.
This film, set in rural Italy, is broadly about an eccentric Italian-German family of beekeepers. Beyond this, it’s a coming-of-age movie about a young woman from whom a lot is expected.
Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) and his wife, Angela (Alba Rohrwacher), are hippies in the true sense of the word, leading exceedingly spare and simple lives and living off the land on an isolated farm near a lake. Their four young daughters, particularly Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), the eldest, appear rooted in the soil as well
The family sustains itself from the harvest and sale of artisanal honey. The camera lovingly pans on the clan as they inspect and sort out the buzzing beehives, collect the yellow liquid from a creaking and outmoded centrifuge machine and bottle it in jars.
Wolfgang, a taciturn and gruff man, regards Gelsomina — a quiet and withdrawn girl who’s trying to make sense of the world– as his chief assistant and heir. He hasn’t misjudged her. She’s a level-headed and dependable person. But her mind is not exclusively focused on bees. She wants her family to compete in a TV reality show about traditional families, but Wolfgang would rather spend time with the bees.
In a sub-plot, the family agrees to look after a pensive German boy with a troubled past and a questionable future. Wolfgang seems to like him, as does Gelsomina.
The film unfolds languidly, as if Rohrwacher is working without the benefit of a script and freed from the conventional strictures of cinematic procedures. This is the strength and weakness of The Wonders, whose title refers to the television reality show, hosted by the bubbly actress Monica Belucci.
It’s refreshing to watch a movie stripped of all pretense and artifice, but its loose, unconventional structure can be distracting and off-putting at times.
In keeping with its serene and nonchalant tone, Rohrwacher has assembled a cast of unknown and mostly inexperienced actors, who deliver credible performances.
The Wonders, for all its faults, envelopes you in a quiet, self-contained universe in harmony with nature.