DN:FILM Honeyland
First, let us apologize in advance for the surfeit of puns you’re about to endure, but the much-buzzed-about HONEYLAND is a film that really sticks with the viewer: It’s an astonishingly accomplished documentary, the sort that smacks your gobs with not only its remarkable, intimate access to a hitherto uncovered set of characters; but stuns as well with its breathtaking images, one delivered after another.
The story is deceptively simple: Hatidze Muratova, a rural Macedonian beekeeper who lives in the hinterlands with her aged, ailing mother, tends to her bees and makes forays into Skopje to sell honey, and buy goods; she seems to represent the epitome of a life in balance insofar as her beekeeping, living by the maxim that she should take half the honey while leaving the other half for the bees; as well as a life of National Geographic-level hardship so foreign to typical western consumers as to inspire alternating waves of disbelief and guilt. In an unpowered hut that stretches the notions of “rustic” to its absolute limits, Hatidze cares for her half-blind mother, indulging in luxuries that run the gamut from bananas to bananas, with an occasional inclusion of hair dye. Then, a ne’er do well family of nomads—know-it-all/know-nothing husband; aggravated/long-suffering wife and a pack of charmingly awful/awfully charming kids--moves in nearby and throws that balance into peril.
As you watch the story unfold, you’re continually aware that it isn’t one you’ve seen before: Sort of an eco-parable about the balance of bees and humans, set in the ravaged, desolate Macedonian landscape. You’re also simultaneously aware that somehow, miraculously, filmmakers Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska are managing to capture it. They shot it with DSLRs and onboard microphones, with existing light, and an extraordinary amount of patience. The results are incredibly rewarding.