A Thousand-year-old Bee
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| As presaged in the opening voiceover, even the mild-mannered honeybee, personified by Samuel "Bee" Pichanda (Štefan Kvietik) and standing for a thousand years of Slovakdom, will sting regardless of the cost to its life in order to defend the survival of its colony. To encourage the viewers in making the link during the film's finale 2 ½ hours later, two gigantic honeycombs hang over the tunnel entrance and Samuel carries a traditional folk wood-carved beehive. |
| Samuel takes explosives to blow up a Habsburg army train during World War I while a symbolic carnival, characteristic of ambitious Slovak films in the past, of his living and deceased acquaintances swarms around him to celebrate his somber decision. The Communist red flags and carnations in workers' lapels, as well as the presence of the radical leftist politician from earlier in the film among them, promise a future victory of Marxism-Leninism. |
| The soldiers who shoot Samuel, but fail to prevent the success of his mission, speak Hungarian, the language the oppressive authorities of the Kingdom, the homeland of the Slovaks and several other nationalities, strove to force upon everyone during its final decades – part of the story of A Thousand-year-old Bee in several other scenes, which resonates in Slovak popular historical awareness through the present and was among the familiar intangible cultural artifacts that contributed to the film's readability. |
A review of A Thousand-year-old Bee.
Slovak cinema under communism.
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