What do you think of when you hear the word, “honey”? Perhaps you imagine a beekeeper in a suit, carefully drenching bees in smoke as they reach into a bustling hive. Perhaps you think of the honey itself, golden and dripping lazily. Maybe you think of commercials for Honey Nut Cheerios watched countless times on a childhood television or ASMR videos where someone crunches and whispers their way through a mountain of honeycomb. Or maybe you just think of it as a sweet thing to call someone you love. Directors Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s brilliant new documentary Honeyland, however, brings it all the way back to scripture, where the Promised Land is described as a place filled with “milk and honey.”
In this case, that land is in a remote section of North Macedonia, where Hatidze Muratova has harvested honey for decades. Always sure to take only as much as the hives can spare, Hatidze uses the money she gets for her jars of “pure” honey at the market in nearby-ish Skopje to care for herself and her bed-ridden mother, Natife. It’s a small life, perhaps, but one that Hatidze seems happy to lead—until a new family moves to her otherwise deserted village. At first, the new neighbors get along well. Ljutvie and Hussein Sam’s children seem to like Hatidze and she seems grateful for the company. However, things get complicated when the Sams decide to get into the honey business too.
It’s a scenario perfectly primed for drama and Stefanov and Kotevska convey the story beautifully. Part of it is the images themselves. As we watch Hatidze make her way through grassy plains or skirt a mountain’s edge to reach a remote hive, the landscape is simply breathtaking to behold. Likewise, when the Sams drive their vehicles and cattle into the area, the way that previously pristine land suddenly seems tainted by modernity feels almost sinful. Where the soundtrack was initially filled with buzzing bees and gentle breezes, from there on, it’s filled with machinery, the distant sounds of the Sam children playing and the family performing various chores.
It’s brilliant sound work, but perhaps the strongest element of the filmmaking is the way the directors and editor Atanas Georgiev put it all together. Though the story the film tells is specific to a place and a group of people, it also feels somehow grand in scale. It’s a parable about greed and what comes from disrespecting nature and each story beat feels tailor-made to make this story of honeybees as effective as possible. When Hatidze warns in the first act that taking more than half the honey at a time will cause the Sams’ bees to attack hers, it’s both expected and devastating when it comes true later. When a man from the city pushes Hussein into an impossible deal, we know how greedy and careless he is from the way he devours huge chunks of honeycomb whenever he’s onscreen. And when Nazife says the Sams will be punished for threatening Hatidze’s way of life, what happens feels almost like an act of God.
However, while telling the events in such broad narrative strokes allows Stefanov and Kotevska to exploit the drama of the real-life events they’ve filmed, it does make the moments where their storytelling becomes too affected stand out even more. Early on, when Hatidze and the Sams are still friendly, we see them listening to Phoenix and the Dream’s cover of “You’re So Beautiful.” It’s an unlikely song for them to hear and when Hatidze hears it again much later and at an emotionally poignant moment, it’s difficult to stay in the moment and not wonder if either instance was just an artistic flourish by the directors.
Still, jarring as that moment can be, it’s ultimately an insignificant blip in an otherwise incredible film. Sure, it’s a little hard to understand how Stefanov and Kotevska lucked into filming this story when they only seem to be there for a few months, but even if that timeline is just a result of clever editing, the logistics don’t matter. Rather, viewers will be grateful they were there to capture this story at all. Whether it was a stroke of luck or divine intervention that made Honeyland possible, the result is a gorgeous, moving film that will leave viewers longing to spend just a little more time in that Promised Land.
