Honeyland

"Honeyland" has such a strong dramatic narrative that you wouldn't necessarily know it was a documentary rather than a scripted fictional film.

It tells the story of a woman eking out an existence in the mountains of North Macedonia while caring for her ailing mother. Her life is extremely hard and void of any of the conveniences most of us take for granted -- you know, such minor things like electricity and plumbing -- but she's developed a rhythm that works for her, one that relies very much on a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. She raises bees, and takes the honey she harvests from them into the nearest city to sell at marketplaces. Then enter this absolutely horrid neighbor family who come bumbling into her neighborhood and makes a mess of everything. They're after a quick buck without knowing how to do anything the right way, so they kill all of her bees, nearly ruin the bees' natural habitat, lose a whole bunch of their cows to a disease, all while shouting and bickering and making jackasses of themselves in front of a film crew.

The dynamic between these neighbors captures the dynamic of the world in microcosm. There are those who understand that humans and nature can co-exist, indeed must co-exist if humans are to survive, and those who just want to shortsightedly rape the earth for what they can get from it right now. It's a quietly devastating documentary.

"Honeyland" is the only film in Oscar history to be nominated for both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature.

EDIT: At the time I wrote the above statement it was true. But since then "Collective" has gone on to do the same.

Grade: A.

The relatively modern tools Hussein uses to weigh honey only help to cement the film's clear microcosm of the tension between sustainability and industrialization; between restraint and a catastrophic lack of foresight. In that sense, watching "Honeyland" is like looking at the greatest problems of our time through a pinhole, but the film sees the situation with a clarity that gets under your skin and breaks your heart. Far from a scolding, rub-your-nose-in-it depiction of environmental havoc, this is a tender story about the chaos of abandoning the common good. By reflecting Muratova's relationship with her hives against the social contract that she's formed with her mother - and that binds Hussein to his family - Kotevska and Stefanov shine a light on what the bees have always told us: They survive by serving each other. And if they ever disappeared completely, people would only have themselves to blame.

"One half for me, one half for you."

3 years. 400+ hours of footage. My 2nd viewing. Yet I am still at a loss for words at how a film like this is even possible.

It somehow manages to present a grounded narrative, a parable of rural life, and a kind environmental message, all quietly captured through observational lens and intimate scope. You will witness everything from a cow giving birth to the near-drowning of a child (which, while brief, is very difficult to watch). The editing and fly-on-the-wall filmmaking style is superb.

Do not miss.

In a microcosm you get to see what humans are doing wrong. The amount of time the filmmakers have spent with the subject of the film, shows in the level of intimacy that the camera has acquired in their lives. As if it's a pair of eyes. And not a camera. Making this a thoroughly engaging film.

Hatidze Muratova collects honey from local bees in rural North Macedonia. She's alone caring for her elderly mother. Times are getting tougher. A Turkish family moves in next door with their cattle. Then they start raising their own bees and conflict follows.

This is a documentary of a woman and her bees. At first, I figured that it'd be a simple movie of beautiful poverty and living with nature. I did not expect the devastating neighbor drama and the tragic perseverance with her mother. I'm almost certain that some of the conversations have been recreated. In fact, the story is so great that I wonder if it has been manufactured. The chainsaw scene is just devastating. That whole conflict is so small and so important. This is a personal epic.