OVP: Honeyland (2019)

Film: Honeyland (2019)
Stars: Hatidze Muratova
Director: Tarama Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best International Feature Film-North Macedonia, Documentary Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Honeyland this past year made history by joining movies like Parasite and Pain & Glory with getting multiple nominations for the Oscars, escaping the "foreign film" marginalization that usually only relegates films with subtitles to one category.  Honeyland was unique because its second nomination was in the Best Documentary feature category, making it the first film to be nominated in both categories.  Honeyland is not what you'd consider a traditional documentary, however.  It doesn't, for example, take a look at the many people of North Macedonia or the diminishing bee population (as I initially expected based on the title), but instead focuses on a year in the life of one woman, our unlikely protagonist Hatidze Muratova.

(It's real life, but you don't know this plot so I'm giving a spoiler alert anyway) The film follows Hatidze throughout a year in her life.  Initially, she is alone, happy but devoted to her work as a wild beekeeper whose human companion is her ailing mother.  Her sisters died when she was quite young, and she never married, but this isn't a problem for her future in the film's opening sequences, where she happily sells her honey and comes back with bananas & a peacock fan for her mother.  However, when a large family arrives with a trailer, her peaceful existence ends.  She tries to make friends with the family, even sharing her wisdom on how to maintain bees, but the family disregards her advice, and as a result, they harvest too much of the honey, and as a result their bees invade & kill Hatidze's.  Her mother soon dies, and the family, without means of sustaining themselves, also leave, with Hatidze now destitute without her longtime companion and no more occupation.

The film is marvelous, and incredibly well-crafted.  You don't get the sense of what's about to happen in the slow first thirty minutes, and you might be reaching for your phone or clicking the pause button, but don't, as it all comes together narratively as the family arrives.  The documentary features no conversations with the directors, no narration, just observation into Hatidze's life, and, as the film progresses, her wandering neighbor family.  As a result, you don't get to witness the catharsis you'd normally expect from such a movie.  While Hatidze goes ahead & (justifiably) chastises them for betraying her and their community (ruining her life, quite frankly), we just get excuses from these selfish bystanders, and without the director stepping in and saying "you need to apologize," we are left emotionally similar to Hatidze at the end of the film.  That this is a real film, and we aren't just watching an actress but someone whose actual life had been torn from her, is gut-wrenching, and Honeyland is honestly one of the saddest films I've seen in years because there's no silver lining in this woman's life.

The fact that it feels like we're watching something narrative is probably why it got nominated in both categories, but in terms of a documentary, it's honestly perfect at getting its messaging across.  The family is trying to do what's best for them, and if you try to remember they're real, struggling people too, you begin to have some sympathy for them...but then you remember that Hatidze gave them a plan on how to coexist with her.  It's not hard to see a climate change metaphor here, with Hatidze as planet earth, giving & giving, but warning that if the family exceeds the limits, they will both perish, and the family simply not having the strength to listen.  It's a cruel reminder of how easy some problems are to solve, and how it's not desperation but malice & greed that ultimately cause us to falter.