The movie is set in an isolated mountain region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water. The filming took three years because of the remoteness of the location. Hatidze comes from a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, eeking out a very modest living selling honey in small batches in a city 12 miles from her home--which she walks to. Her peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval by the arrival of an itinerant family, with their seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle. Hatidze optimistically meets the promise of change with an open heart, offering up her affections, her brandy and her tried-and-true beekeeping advice. It doesn't take long before Hussein, the itinerant family's patriarch, senses opportunity and develops an interest in selling his own honey. Hussein breaks the rules of beekeeping, starves his hives, which attack Haditze's bees and upsets the natural order of things. Taken on a macro scale, their conflict exposes the fundamental tension between nature and humanity, harmony and discord, exploitation and sustainability. Even as the family provides a much-needed respite from Hatidze's isolation and loneliness, her very means of survival are threatened.
No comments:
Post a Comment