The irony of seeing Honeyland on International Womens Day didn’t escape me as I left the cinema and took a huge breathe to signal the finale of a cracking documentary.
The star of Honeyland is Hatidze, a peasant woman in her 50’s, living in a stark and mountainous region of Macedonia. She looks after her crippled and bed-ridden mother in what could be described as a rock cubby house with 2 x beds, a stove, a dog and some cats. She is incredibly durable and tough without ever complaining of her circumstance. She carries herself gracefully with a beautiful gait, effortlessly walking around the spectacular landscape but it’s her relationship with bees that is so special. She talks and sings to them and like indigenous Australians, understands that there has to be a balance to what you can take and leave behind for a sustainable future.
She takes her honey to Macedonia’s capital Skopje to sell where it’s considered to be of the highest quality. Upon returning from a trip to the city, Hatidze finds a gypsy family has moved in next door complete with caravan, cattle, a heap of kids and a attitude to personal safety that would reduce a Worksafe official into quivering in the fetal position!
Unfortunately for Hatidze, the neighbours try to make their own honey but refuse to listen to Hatidze’s counsel and their bees start destroying hers and upsetting the delicate balance that Hatidze had so brilliantly created. Added to this pressure, her mother continues to deteriorate and during that period of the film, the love between the 2 of them is palpable.
Honeyland has won a number of awards but not least for it’s cinematography. How the film makers got so close and intimate to their subjects is beyond me. The characters are uncompromisingly tough both mentally and physically. They are hard working in the brutal weather extremes that Macedonia possesses and everyone is filthy dirty. The kids often steal the show and play like there is no tomorrow as well as working in extremely dangerous conditions. There must have been times when the film makers were tempted to pull a kid out of harms way or brush a bee off their face…but no. So authentic is this film that it makes you wonder what the hell we complain about in this country?
If you’re a bit bee-phobic it may not be advisable to see the film and I was blown away by the amount of flies that were hanging around. Anyway, if you’ve had a gutful of “punch-ons” in supermarket toilet paper aisles and dysfunctional couples on reality TV, this is the film that will bring your feet to the ground and remind you of how grateful we should be. A stunning and touching documentary. 9/10
Here is the trailer:
