Hare Krishna concern over Bee Season

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Hare Krishna concern over Bee Season

IndiaPost.com - Union City,CA,USA

.... time, Saul's son Aaron (Max Minghella) embarks on a spiritual quest that

culminates in his joining the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

(ISKCON ...

http://www.indiapost.com/members/story.php?story_id=5125

Published: 2005-11-22

Hare Krishna concern over Bee Season

India Post News Service

 

Fox Searchlight released Bee Season nationwide On November 11. Thefilm, based

on Myla Goldberg's 2001 novel, stars Hollywood veterans Richard Gere and

Juliette Binoche. The story focuses on Saul Naumann (Gere), a Jewish religious

scholar who attempts to mold his daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) into a Kabbalah

prodigy when he discovers her uncanny ability to spell. At the same time,

Saul's son Aaron (Max Minghella) embarks on a spiritual quest that culminates

in his joining the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON),

popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement. The filmmakers consulted with

ISKCON members in Berkeley, California, and featured several practicing

devotees as extras.

 

"We appreciate the filmmaker's sincere efforts to accurately depict the

Hare Krishna movement," an ISKCON Communication statement said, ”At the same

time, we are concerned that, despite those efforts, viewers and members of the

media may misinterpret some of Aaron's actions to be representative of our

policies or beliefs."

 

In the film, Aaron is shown deceiving his parents to stay at a Hare Krishna

temple; in real life, ISKCON maintains a rigid policy that requires minors to

provide written parental consent before they may stay at a temple.

"Interfering between a child and his or her parents, no matter how eager the

child is to take up the Krishna faith, is unacceptable and strictly

prohibited," says ISKCON spokesman Vyenkata Bhatta.

 

Unlike virtually all of the Krishna devotee characters depicted in the

film, most ISKCON members today do not live as monks and nuns within temples.

They maintain families, and live, work, and go to school in the general

community, practicing Krishna consciousness in their homes and attending

services at the temple on a regular basis. ISKCON represents Vaishnavism, a

monotheistic faith that is often considered the largest denomination within

the broad Vedic, or Hindu culture.

 

The film's directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, seem to share

ISKCON's concern that Hare Krishna characters in the movie be depicted with

respect. "The Hare Krishnas get a bad knock," Siegel recently told reporters

from the Chicago Tribune. "They're really just a branch of Hinduism basically,

and they believe in making their presence felt so that people might join in

their experience.”

 

Kate Bosworth, who plays a Krishna devotee in the film, enjoyed spending time

at the ISKCON temple in preparation for her role. "For me, it was all part of

coming to see what the story of Bee Season is really about - which is that we

all have our different ways of searching for meaning, for God, for love, for

whatever it is you want to call it."

 

"Bee Season raises important questions about family dynamics, control,

understanding, and religious pluralism, while examining two popular, but often

misunderstood, religious traditions: Kabbalah and the Hare Krishna movement,"

Bhatta offers. "We just hope that audiences will appreciate the complexity of

these questions, rather than vilify religious traditions that they may know

little about."