Half For Me Half For The Bees In Hatige’s Honeyland
Every once in a while a movie is made in the Republic of (North) Macedonia that succeeds in causing an organic splash on the home stage.
There have been some original ideas and quality productions, but the movies which had carved their own place in history are those that have been emotionally and substantially real, such as Before the Rain.
Honeyland is the other one. The feature documentary transcended the borders of the country in which it was filmed and went on to receive two Academy awards nominations: best foreign film and best feature documentary.
For those who haven’t seen it, Honeyland is a story about a rare kind of person inhabiting an unbelievable reality. Hatige is the name that the woman who bears it could seldomly hear it being uttered by anyone else, except by her now late mother.
This accidental story provides a glimpse into Hatige’s life. The film begins and ends in one of those remote and depopulated villages that are scattered around Macedonia.
The backdrop to Honeyland is a stunning still-life of dilapidated houses made of mud and stone, arid hills dotted by scant brushes, and stones and crags resting silent in a landscape that’s devoid of any organized life. Hatige and her mother are the only inhabitants, but not for long.
The filming crew behind Honeyland had discovered the village looking for something other than subjects and the peripety which ensued, however they were captivated by the protagonist’s way of life and so remained to film, over the course of 100 days, the footage that yielded two Academy nominations.
How did Honeyland become deserving of all the earnest attention from media, film critics and environmentalists around the world, winning accolades and prizes at film festivals (Sundance) besides the eventual grand finale at the Awards tonight?
Honeyland is a perfect allegory about a dilemma which most poignantly defines the world at hand: a rupture that leaves a gruelling void between those who need to have wants and those who merely have needs.
This isn’t such an uncommon theme in the world of cinematography after all, but then, how many movies or documentaries have managed to grasp the essence thereof in a manner that is so innocently natural?
Honeyland does this unequivocally and for this reason only, let alone the impeccable photography, the documentary makes it apparent that the world is a theater to the ominous showdown between the self-sustainable essence of life as lived according to Hatige, the malfeasance of the proprietor whose imperative is to corner the market, and the masses of the Earth whose confusion and volatility render everyone into a tool for the stripping of the earth.
The hours are ticking before the start of the awards and I can’t help but hope that Honeyland wins one of the Oscars. My small and embittered Macedonia will find itself under the spotlight in the next five minutes and the people here will certainly rejoice.
But in my eyes if Honeyland wins then it would mean that a greater number of people are going to witness the living allegory which distills in plain motions a simple approach to a global trouble.
In other words, when Hatige collects honey from the wild bees, she declares her credo out loud — “half for you, half for me” — so that both species can go on living. “Half for you, half for me” sounds like a mantra against greed and stupidity, both of which Dr. Stephen Hawking cites as the ‘plagues’ that will end the world.
After all, Hatige and the people who had taught her the art of taking honey from wild bees, probably knew a thing or two about not cutting the branch on which you are sitting on — something that the proprietor and his business ‘partner’ managed to do in the blink of an eye.
Honeyland is no less a cautionary tale than any of the movies and documentaries that are meant to instill the viewer with a sentiment of doubt regarding one’s actions. The film, however, leaves us bemused with a familiar feeling of not having found an answer to a problem — the problem being the lustre of quick money against the sanctity or carrying capacity of the ecosystem which is being exploited.
There are takeaways to be derived from Honeyland but somehow, Hatige’s generous “half for me, half for the bees” takes the cake and puts to shame any grand economic formula for growth against a humankind in peril.
For the people of Macedonia, Honeyland is too close to home to ignore its lessons. Years in the making, a change in the values of this society resulted in a growing disparity between haves and have-nots. City slickers deal in the modern parlance and the rural-dweller speaks the tongue of the saw; both types value matter over sanity.
