Colony

HERE'S A wonderfully odd diversion: a documentary on the worldwide decrease in bee populations. Financed by the Irish Film Board, Colonyis both scientific investigation and character study. It also features some of the most attractive photography you'll ever encounter in a non-fiction film. How nice to see it get a theatrical release.

The film considers the phenomenon known as ColonyCollapse Syndrome. Over the past decade, the honey industry has been savaged by the phenomenon of the vanishing bees. But the ramifications stretch far beyond bees and their immediate human dependents. Contributing to pollination as they do, the insects occupy a key position in the world's fragile ecosystems.

Colonyallows its contributors to speculate as to the causes of the catastrophe. Concerns about pesticides are raised, but the most lucid boffin suggests that the cause may be just some mundane disease.

For all Colony's efforts to flesh out the scientific conundrums, it works best as an examination of a clan in peril. Much of the time is taken up with a fly-on-the-wall study of the Seppi family. Fundamentalist Christians whose women all wear triangular headscarves, the tight- knit group faces ruin as its beekeeping business declines. The directors secure extraordinary access, at one stage recording the mother's fury as she watches her son botch a business meeting.

It gradually emerges that, despite the creepy patriarchal nature of their society, the Seppis are very much under the control of the senior female. Parallels with the bee community are unavoidable.