Bees, and much enthusiasm about them.

Two friends, amateur beekeepers, explain to the director what they are doing. In the process they eventually get stung by an enraged swarm and find out that their honeycombs have been invaded by a parasite. It is definitely sad.

We witness their desolation. But they seem to be fatalistic enough to overcome the failure and the overall feeling is far from despair. “Esercizi di sopravvivenza aims to pay tribute to amateur skills, non-specialisation and failed attempts, characteristics which are hard to reconcile with the usual economic definition of work, which thus becomes something else, like the feeling of camaraderie that unites the two characters” (EC).

The camera has a delicate surreal note and focuses on the attitude of the characters and on their pleasure in being together, whether taking care of the bees, collecting mushrooms, training their dog or spending time in a messy workshop listening to music. They share something, anything else might actually not be that relevant.

Paolo Moretti