Hatidze Muratova in Honeyland (Neon)

 One of modernity’s most cruel ironies is that those communities contributing least to the degradation of our earth’s ecosystem will be most impacted by it. Honeyland centers on an individual who represents a dying way of life, one that is profoundly and symbiotically intertwined with the balance of nature.

Shot and directed with vérité-style minimalism by filmmakers Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefnov, this intimate documentary follows Hatidze Muratova, a Turkish beekeeper in her 50s living in an abandoned rural village, without electricity or running water, in the Republic of North Macedonia. Her gritty, rough exterior stands in sharp contrast to her gregarious and relentlessly hopeful spirit. Kotevska and Stefnov couldn’t have found a better subject: Hatidze’s presence is incredibly electrifying, and she may be one of the most memorable personalities we’ll see in film this year. Despite the unforgiving, rocky terrain of her surroundings, Hatidze trudges on with a restlessness that, at times, seems superhuman.

While tending to her bees and honeycombs in a tradition that goes back generations, Hatidze also cares for her ailing 85-year old bedridden and nearly blind mother, Nazife, whose own resigned toughness makes it clear that Hatidze is indeed her mother’s daughter. Their relationship is quite touching but, at times, ambiguous.

Nazife, whose mind and body is rapidly deteriorating, appears to be the only person in Hatidze’s life, further epitomizing the film’s ubiquitous aura of desolation and of a worn, simpler past fading further away. While doing her hair, Hatidze recalls to her mother how Nazife used to take care of her, and one gets the sense that a real and loving debt is being repaid, since Nazife has lost all of her children, except for Hatidze. One can only imagine the sorts of emotional and physical struggles Nazife had to go through during her own time raising Hatidze.

The film also features another beekeeping family—a Turkish family of nine and their herd of cows—who have just moved next door to Hatidze and her mother. The film goes back and forth between this family, and its rambunctious kids, and Hatidze’s beekeeping ventures as they all try to cultivate and sell fresh honey at the local market. Conflict ensues between Hatidze and Hussein, the father of the family, who wants to make as much money as possible, and his actions put Hatidze’s livelihood at risk. Hussein’s patriarchal worldview also lends him a degree of arrogance, and he ignores Hatidze’s continual warnings and advice over proper beekeeping storage. What ensues is a somber depiction of an existence that clings on a shaky and narrow tight rope, where material precarity makes relationships turn from warmly familial to coldly transactional.

The result is a visual narrative that lets its subjects speak for themselves. There are no explanatory title cards or narration. Viewers are left to contextualize for themselves what they’re seeing and why they’re seeing it. On the one hand, Honeyland is a simple “day in the life of” Macedonians simply trying to survive. On the other hand, the film is also about those who will be most affected by the looming destruction of earth’s delicate ecosystem.