22 I watched this documentary twice before and after. The first time was when the epidemic information was still climbing slowly. I bought two hundred masks on the Internet that day.
The second time was yesterday.
In just ten days, everything turned upside down, and my mood was completely different. I seemed to be able to suddenly understand the seemingly understatement of the traumatic context in this film.
This film is definitely one of the most recognized masterpieces in 2019. It won several awards at last year's Sundance Film Festival, including the Jury Prize in the World Documentary Unit .
In the Oscar nominations announced not long ago, it was even more pleasantly surprised to mention the best international feature film and the best documentary .
The Land of Honey (2019)
Director: Tamara Kotvska/Lubo Stefanov Starring: Hatiz Muratova/Nazif Muratova/Hussein Sam/Liutvi Sam Genre: Drama/Documentary Film Country/Region: North Macedonia Release Date: 2019-01-28 (Sundance Film Festival)/2019-08-29 (North Macedonia) Duration: 87 minutes Also known as: Honeyland / Poems of the Land of Honey (Hong Kong) / Honey of the Land (Taiwan)
When I first saw "Honeyland" , I was attracted by its elegant story. It must be inaccurate to say that it is a purely documentary film. There is actually a systematic and powerful expression behind "Honeyland" . structure.
This structure urges me to reflect on my misunderstanding of nature and the way of life that we have always been proud of, which is boasted as a "Homo sapiens", and the conclusion is clear and straightforward:
What we have, that is, everything that seems "as it should", can be "unjust."
Director Tamara Kotvska , Lubo Stefanov and the team spent three years following the life of the female bee picker Kadice, and finally edited it from 400+ hours of footage. This is an 85-minute documentary.
Of course, numbers do not support the truth of life, and sometimes the complexity of the material can lead to a distorted depiction.
But the rare thing about " Honeyland" is that the photographer captures a comprehensive and vivid picture of life as much as possible, staring at the static, chasing the dynamic, and the scattered language, and the brushstrokes of various textures cooperate to complete this work. soul……
From Cadiz dealing with bees, to a neighbor's family trying to control the violent cattle, to pure sitting and contemplation, the images are sharply cut into the film, which not only restores the rhythm of the land, but also captures the quiet time. Elapsed. Under the rotation of the four seasons, there is an endless riddle.
The original theme of this shooting project was "a river flowing through the center of Macedonia", but when they discovered Kadice's handmade beehive, the plan was completely changed. Bees have become the guide, allowing them to see an ancient ritual that is more vivid and more perishable.
The area where Kadice lives has been abandoned for more than seventy years, so there is neither roads nor electricity. The entire team has only one car that can accommodate four people. They use this car to store equipment and some food.
The two directors have different backgrounds, and their understanding of the subject's situation is also different. They shoot separately and agree to stop shooting once they have obtained enough image data to get a glimpse of the outline of the story.
Compared with mammals, which are similar to humans, bees are not easy to inspire empathy among people.
Our perspective on insects is more similar to that of plants, just as we sympathize with Kadice’s living conditions, or be affected by a dead calf, but not necessarily empathize with the death of bees.
The shooting team is a group of 6 people in the "4+2" mode. The "2" refers to the two indispensable photographers Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma .
They not only captured the human situation, but also penetrated into the microcosm of bees, interweaving the ecology of bees with human ecology, so that the audience can see the encounter of each bee under the colony.
The editing process in the later period was also very interesting. Because they could not understand the local language, facing the huge amount of material, the two directors could only rely on "visual logic" to control the scissors in their hands, and cut the digital images as silent films.
After editing and translating them one by one, they were shocked by the "poetry" presented by the randomly generated words. This kind of non-news interview-style implicitness provided a poetic threshold for the work.
For example, Kadice’s mother said "I can't get out, I am like a tree now" .
There is also the dialogue about spring, "Can you imagine when spring comes?" It is hard to believe that such a poetic moment will naturally occur in Kadice.
"Honeyland " is very loyal to "natural light", and the photographer believes more in the visual impact of natural light than in the refurbished art created with artificial light.
If nature is no longer conveyed to the audience as a symbol, then a subtle situation will be reached, that is, the audience will be infiltrated by the texture of nature, and while accepting its dilapidated truth, they will be able to see the original and gorgeous nature of nature. Clothes.
And it’s worth mentioning that the whole film only used drone shots once, that is, in the beginning of the film. In addition, there are no additional equipment, no expensive cameras, and no filters .
The land of honey is the destroyed natural ecology and the destroyed life of Kadis.
The neighbors came and went, leaving a lot of mess. The neighbors’ children left with their parents, and her illusion about the family lost its foundation.
In the severe winter, her mother's death made her realize that she had nowhere to go. If her mother had been the reason for her staying, then she could not find a reason to leave.
There are also the disappearing bee colony. When she first appeared on the edge of a steep cliff, she seemed to rely entirely on some intuition to complete the mysterious handover with the bee colony.
Her honey was taken from the rock, and the humanitarianism on her body was amazingly gentle. Kadice did not know the hypocritical dogma used to "constrain human power", but did her best.
At the end of the film, this kind of "picking" behavior reappeared. She took out the remaining honey from the rock and sat on the rock with her beagle to enjoy it. From beginning to end, it has never revealed the distorted faces caused by scarcity and desperation.
Kadice seems to have no sense of poverty. She is similar to the "birth" image that we modern individuals expect, that is, a kind of "dullness" blessed by seclusion.
We rudely equate "backwardness/ignorance" with "mental stability", misunderstanding that a blurred vision can be an excellent analgesic.
The existence of Kadice exemplifies how outrageous this misunderstanding is, and how cheap the sense of superiority induced by it is.
Her life is a minimalist closed loop, taking care of bees, harvesting honey, and regularly going to Skopje’s market to bottle and sell her honey, and the money she earns from honey is just enough to take care of herself and her 85-year-old blind mother. .
The interesting phenomenon caused by this minimalism is that she cares about everything she has, such as her bees, her mother, and even the noisy and selfish neighbors.
As long as everything that reaches her is within the range of her gaze, there is no complex standard that can disturb her vision.
Kadice is an emotional person, and her pampering with the children next door speaks for itself.
Swinging, teaching them to take care of the bees, and talking patiently, she is as shy as a child, but also has the instinct to protect the weak.
But at the same time, the anger and sadness brought by loneliness and fear also happened in order in her cramped living space.
Kadis is a woman with a complete personality, but she believes in the same kind as a bee.
The reason for her conflict with her neighbor is very simple: Kadice can tolerate poverty, but her neighbor cannot accept it.
A nomadic home with seven children to raise is a metaphor for the excessive exploitation of land and nature. This kind of "clumsy" exploitation is the fuel for capital operation, but it is also the helplessness of the people at the bottom.
For Kadice, "continuous harmony" is something more valuable than the euro, but in reality, the future of the neighbor's family is destined to defect to the social system dominated by capital.
They are hired hunters, and honey alone cannot fill what they need.
Capitalism is essentially a whirlpool. It has the destructive power of sucking up and distorting anyone and things around it.
"Honeyland" uses a woman’s daily life to carry many huge problems. As the last generation of female bee pickers in Europe, tradition teaches her to choose to take care of her mother instead of marrying and leaving home (it is true, because she is a family The only female family left in the house), and capital eliminated her from the rules.
Many of these comparisons are very interesting. She was pleased to get a fan at the market. Comparing her neighbor's crude production of honey, we will find that a simple look can really increase the value of an item, while capital and greed only Disparage priceless or empty production figures .
Kadice breaks away from the illusory images constructed by modern culture, "take half, leave half." This clear purity and contract spirit should be what brings us inspiration.
Kadice’s reclusive life does not mean that she is a poor and backward victim. Although she is still bullied and suppressed on the material level, she is a rare spiritual survivor.
This kind of humanity is actually more like the soul of the film. Just like her bees , Cadiz has become an endangered thing in this place and even the whole of Europe .
However, if I were to choose between the life of Kadice and the life of a modern person, I should still choose the status quo honestly.
Because very few people really want to engage in an ancient business, torturing themselves physically.
But this does not mean that we cannot be victims. When Kadice’s neighbor destroyed this seemingly simple contract, Kadice lost her bee.
In our seemingly safe society, when some people violate the contract and duty that should be abided by, what we suffer is a catastrophic plague.
Humans are too smart.
Human beings are always smart enough to suffer the consequences.
We are good at forgetting a simple truth pursued by Kadice, that is, "human beings are deviating from nature while deviating from their own human nature . "
But if people abandon the most basic respect for life, such as bees, wild animals called "game", pets that have been abandoned and killed recently, and even our compatriots who are in danger, then we will be born as human beings. Doesn't make sense anymore, is it?
At the end of the film, Kadice may be faced with an uncertain future, but she always possesses some kind of human dignity.
From spring to winter, a woman who had never had anything but appeared fearless, gave me a great shock.
This time, whether it is through this film or the disaster in real life, it is time to rethink the meaning of "life". Of course, not just our own lives, but other lives.
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