A Honeyed Life
While watching I wasn't aware that this was a documentary - the narrative seemed to good to have happened accidentally, but much of it looked like documentary - the children clearly weren't actors, and the gaps and moments missed probably wouldn't happen in a fully constructed movie.
The scenery and people and lives depicted are stunning. The embers of a dying way of living still flickering in the the forgotten corners of Europe, and the fully embodied wisdom that such a life requires seem extraordinary to those of us trapped in a consumer-capitalist culture.
A major missing element, as a documentary, is any evidence of the relationship between the film-makers and the subjects. They apparently spent three years shooting the film, but in doing so they have erased their own presence. This inevitably raises questions as to the extent to which events were manipulated or reconstructed.
Hatidze's acceptance of the family passing through her life and their impact on her is an object lesson in the benefits of adaptability and living well based on being true to your self in relation to the world.
In the end, as in our world, life goes on. The bees return, Hatidze, and the mountains that created her, will persist even as their seasons change. A very affirmative film.
