Review: Honeyland

Posted on 23 March, 2020

The last female bee-hunter in Europe must save the bees … don’t read further, IMDb’s synopsis is rubbish. If you want some background, go to Wikipedia 

I know I have seen a profound film when its influence is still leaking into my life days later. I may have ‘raised my voice’ at someone worrying about toilet paper supplies yesterday.

I may have used the phrase ‘check your privilege’ before directing them to the cinema to see this—it will change your life.

I enjoy a good documentary but this transcends that medium. I can only liken it to seeing your first Attenborough…with humans. I saw it with three companions and each of us had our personal crisis at different moments—but we all had it.

A moment when what we were watching went from an interesting film to something that will stay with us forever. I cannot thank those friends enough for encouraging me to see it.

The central character is a woman younger than me that could be my mother. A hard life has left its mark on her but her positive attitude and friendly nature give her a dignity and elegance all her own.

Still, there are reality checks. When her mother asks why she bothers to dye her hair, she replies: “Everyone wants to feel beautiful, even me.”

The life she ekes out of a deserted village and a wild landscape is subsistence at best but her credo is an example to us all. She always takes half the honey from the bees but leaves half for them. She loves and cares for her mother—and shouts at her when she needs to.

That is, until the balance of this life is upset by a family moving into their village. What happens then is at times joyful but also casually violent, wasteful and damaging.

A microcosm of our world right now, where so many are bent on looking after their own and they do not think about the welfare of all.

I am making it sound so much more dour than it is—it is so involving, so emotional and this woman has such dignity and timeless beauty. Her life is her life and she lives it every day. I am in awe—as I think the filmmakers were.

It was not meant to be the opus that it is but apparently they found themselves coming back to this village time and time again, to this very human drama playing out.

Part fly-on-the-wall, part interview it is wholly engrossing.