Honeyland

An extraordinary movie, which is representing every single aspect of our everyday lives. So touching, so pure, also sad, but on the other hand so real, that makes you think deeply about your existence. I wasn't the only one who didn't want to leave the cinema last night.

Perfect !!

"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.

Fighting with your neighbors. Struggling to care for your aging parent. Plying your craft and trade in the compassionless barreling economy of scale, so different from, and destructive to, the natural economies of being human. It is the same here, there, and everywhere. When there is no social contract their is imbalance and suffering, when the natural order is defended, there is simplicity and sustainability. One of my favorites of the year. Cinema is many things, but at its most beautiful it is an empathy engine.

This documentary definitely regained my hope for Macedonian cinema. I just don't know where to start but i'm going to start my review with the protagonists. For me, Atije is symbol of strength and persistence. She is something this world needs badly. She proves that even in the hardest times, people need to be aware of doing the right thing, no matter how bad life gets. Also, we are all connected in this world, humans, nature, flora and fauna. That's why she always puts nature first. In order to take, you must give. But greed gets the best of us. That's what this documentary proves. Sincere, caring and self-less are the words to describe Atije.

While i was watching the documentary, i thought of how every moment was captured at the right time. Even they hired the best actors and actresses in the world, it wouldn't have been nearly as good as this documentary.

Local people with a troubled story reflects on a global ecological problem. - That's how i would describe this piece of art.

If you want a true wake up call that will get even to the hardest of hearts, go with this one.

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.