2023-06-30 18:00:00
Bodies are formed, formed, disassembled and reassembled, dolls, sculptures emerge, change, tell long-forgotten stories, unsaid. The body is a canvas, a playing surface. Director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren finds in the vocation of the grandfather and mother – both sculptors – a wonderful match for little Aitor (played by the then eight-year-old Sofia Otero, who received the Berlinale Acting Prize for her outstanding performance), who is involved with and in not comfortable with his body.
The plot of “20,000 species of bees” is quickly told. Ane (Patricia López Arnaiz) drives with her three children to her mother’s in the country, they visit the traditional bonfire. Ane uses the time to work on new sculptures in her deceased father’s workshop, her ancestor’s is breathing down her neck, she struggles with comparison, but also with the stories that are told in the village regarding their creation with young girls as models circulate.
Grandmother and great aunt take care of the children. Eight-year-old Aitor is often the center of events. Not long ago he wanted to be called Cocó, but now he hates this and his “own” name. He is unsure regarding almost everything, the neighbors notice his long hair and painted fingernails, the director gently leaves the audience in the dark regarding the child’s biological sex.
“How come you know who you are and I don’t?”
Aitor doesn’t want to take off his bathrobe in the swimming pool, he only dares to open up to a new girlfriend who sees him as a girl. The great aunt’s bees also make the child calmer, the great fear, the vagueness, the unrest become quieter in the presence of the animals. The children later use their wax for self-portraits, Aitor forms a genderless mermaid with a fishtail from the waist down.
The story of a search for identity is told in wonderfully coherent images and dialogues, and neither too much is said or shown, nor does it fulfill the expected clichés. “20,000 species of bees” takes on a topic that is often shrill, demanding and thus overwhelming, but not less intensely as a result.
“Why do you know who you are and I don’t?” the child asks in despair. When Aitor finally finds a name for herself in Lucia, it’s a warming and comforting moment. The film also uncovers other family conflicts, tells the beginnings, leaving a lot of room for your own.
“20,000 Kinds of Bees” is such a balanced narrative, such a sensitive film that one rarely gets to see. What an enrichment of this film summer.
Von Mariella Moshammer
1688164804
#body #canvas
