Honeyland : entre recueillement et recueil : « Chaque atome de silence est la chance d’un fruit mûr »

Abstract

The splendid film Honeyland (2020) is labelled as a documentary but, through its controlled aesthetic effects and the creation of an internal narrative tension, it constructs a dramaturgy to finally deliver what we will call a passion: that of Hatidze, exceptional traditional beekeeper who lives alone in a harsh and desolate land, outside civilization and time, in a world of silence: silence, a mute agreement with the universe, is the mark of the excellence of all activity which works in pure interiority and it is indeed thus, in the harmony of souls, that she lives her relationship with (wild or domesticated) bees, which alone provide musical accompaniment. Driven by a pagan mysticism, respectful of nature and its miraculous gifts, she practices beekeeping as a pantheist ritual. The noisy and destructive arrival of a traveling Turkish family turns her life and her immutable program of action upside down. A poignant story about the end of a world, the film closes, around a shared honeycomb, with a wordless exchange between Hatidze and his dog that resembles an inner prayer.