Sometimes a great documentary requires nothing more than sticking a camera in a previously unimaginable place and stepping out of the way. Honeyland is that breed of fly on the wall observational cinema but one that also magically captures universal circle of life arc. Directors Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska present the material in a naturalist and unfussy vérité style, dropping us into a world as alien as the surface of Mars and allowing us to exist in its fragile buzzing ecosystem for 85 wonderful minutes.
Hatidze Muratova, a Macedonian wild bee keeper, lives with her half-blind and bed-ridden mother in the mountainous reaches of the Balkans. Sheltered in a shambled stack of simple shale, barely weatherproofed for the ideal summer conditions, Hatidze’s way of life is one of gentle cohabitation; living in perfect harmony with nature and the natural world. Hatidze keeps bees, collecting their honey as her predecessors did and selling it at the “local” market (a four-hour walk through the desert) for 10 euro a jar.
Hatidze may have the look of a Grimm Brothers’ witch but she has a delicate heart and gentle nature. At market, she searches for chestnut hair dye and simple luxuries like ripe bananas and a hand fan, artifacts of our world ferried by Hatidze to simpler times.
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Sustainability isn’t just a buzz word in Hatidze’s approach to beekeeping. It is the only way. Each time she harvests, she takes only half the available honeycomb. One for her. One for them. Balance.
Then comes the arrival of a boisterous nomadic family, packed in a trailer filled with dirty blankets and spring chickens, oblivious to the traditions of Hatidze’s pint-sized village and not eager to learn. While their presence initially seems to distress Hatidze, interrupting the simple harmony of country life and age-old traditions with the screams of seven noisy kids, whistling diesel engines, and incessant hammering upon tin roofing, she also seems to welcome the presence of children. Something we discover she never had but always wanted.
Their howls littering the air, the nomadic family quickly come to dominate the land, physically altering it to their will with structures and fire. It’s all rather arcane and biblical and Stefanov and Kotevska’s visual aesthetic lends a larger-than-life power to a story that could be mistaken as the observation of simple matters. When the family patriarch Hussein cannot convert his cattle farming ways to profit, he looks to Hatidze’s beekeeping as a backup income source. At first, the friendly neighbor is more than happy to help teach the balance of beekeeping but when Hussein gets greedy, rushing production, taking all of the honeycombs and leaving none for the bees, the natural order is disrupted, throwing Hatidze’s life-long livelihood into question.
Hussein’s family consumes what they can and moves on once they’ve ate up all its resources, Honeyland depicting drawing a parallel to the greedy child in red overalls beneath Shel Silversteen’s giving tree. Their family can be interpreted as the hungry belly of modernity, scouring the earth for each and every lingering profit margin. They are not depicted as evil so much as they are (however much we don’t want to accept it) humanity at large. Creatures of convenience, trading long term sustainability for short term gains.
Part of the great wonder of Honeyland is how it works on some many levels. As a purely visual enterprise, it’s near hypnotizing. Stunning natural-light cinematography from Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma and super-wide landscape shots show off this world’s alluring mix of beauty and desolation. As a cautionary tale about conservatism and our human responsibility to the land and tradition, Stefanov and Kotevska’s film delicately connects. This somber tale of transformation and a shifting ethos towards the natural world is both urgent and highly watchable; the perfect storm of educationally assertive and pure entertainment.
Many of the scenes that Stefanov and Kotevska capture are unreal – the shots that many a documentary filmmaker can only dream of. There’s all sorts of domesticated and wild animals – kittens, dogs, birds, cattle, and, of course, bees – milling around and adding to the sense of natural chaos. Combining these animals with the rambunctious children, the documentary takes on an almost Jackass quality, with cows round up by children kicking their assailants, bees on the constant defense stinging unprotected faces and hands left and right, and a little girl nonchalantly nearly drowning in a river at one point. Stefanov and Kotevska’s material is shocking but never exploitative as they remain passive bystanders
More often than not, Stefanov and Kotevska uncover the perfect imagine to encapsulate the underlying mood and tenor of each scene. When the film meditates on the clash of ancient customs and modern life, they present a tableau of Hatidze flanked by a young man with a green forked mohawk. When Hatidze’s harmonious life is thrown into upheaval by overbearing and greedy neighbors, she looks on as a turtle futilely struggles to escape its enclosure. Through countless examples of underscoring the emotional push and pull of Hatidze’s existence, notably without even a single use of traditional interview, the editorial genius of Honeyland is never far from mind.
CONCLUSION: ‘Honeyland’ masterfully employs the documentary medium to tell a sprawling story about sustainability through the lens of a traditional Macedonian beekeeper. The perfect cross section of educational entertainment and storytelling prowess, the Sundance award winner is nectar for the soul that buzzes with poignancy.
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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