Review of Bee Season Staring Richard Gere

Review of Bee Season Staring Richard Gere

I recently went to see Bee Season, starring Richard Grere. The long awaited film that employed over 40 devotees from Berkeley and LA temples.

Hare Krishna! All Glories To Srila Prabhupada. Please accept my humble obeisances.

I recently went to see Bee Season, starring Richard Gere. The long awaited film that employed over 40 devotees from Berkeley and LA temples. Last year ISKCON Berkeley approached me to help with the dealings between the Temple and this troupe of Hollywooders because I had just graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Cinema and they thought I would be helpful.

When I received the script, I was a bit taken back by the Buddist/Hindu concoctions that were emanating from the pages, but I took it as a challenge and an opportunity to preach.

I ended up giving them back a completely revised edition of the Hare Krishna scenes. They sent them back to me with what they thought would be satisfactory, but actually they only used maybe 2 or 3 lines that I had written. They said they wanted to “preserve the beauty of the scene”.

We went back and forth a few times until we came to a pretty good explanation of what Krishna Consciousness is all about, but nothing that I wrote ended up in the final cut. I would say they used maybe 30% of what they filmed. They filmed two kirtan scenes and they only used a small portion of one of them. They filmed Srila Prabhupada rising and embracing Aron (Richard Gere’s son in the Film), but they cut that scene also.

On the good side of things, they have a large picture of Srila Prabhupada on the wall of the temple they built in Oakland. Aron chants the entire Holy Name very clearly on beads and the kirtan lead by Lokanatha prabhu is very nice. Kuva prabhu greets Gere at the temple door and they dub his voice in (in order to avoid paying him for speaking lines). He says “Haribol” and his expressions were quite good. When Chali (Aron’s Hare Krishna girlfriend) comes down the stairs with Aron, Kuva is in the back peering curiously into the uncomfortable situation. They asked me to make a Srila Prabhupada T-Shirt so that the audience would know that Aron didn’t give up his Krishna Consciousness, but the T-shirt isn’t on long enough for anyone to catch it.

My impression is that it is very successful in spreading the Maha Mantra to millions of people across the world and it is also favorable to Srila Prabhupada’s movement.

BEE SEASON stars Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Kate Bosworth and introduces two promising newcomers in their first major films roles: Max Minghella and Flora Cross as Aaron and Eliza Naumann.