REVIEW: Honeyland

By: Lilly McEachern

A visually and emotionally captivating documentary, “Honeyland” condenses three years of

footage into 87 minutes of a loose storyline with an intimate view inside the life of a woman who provides for herself and her ailing mother by practicing an ancient, laborious process of

beekeeping in the foothills of Macedonia. In the age of mass production, this method of

cultivation is all but extinct. Poignant and charming, Honeyland is a subtle parable of a modern industrial dialogue with our planet and its limited resources.

With no narration and little dialogue (all in Turkish or Bosnian), “Honeyland” relies heavily on

auditory and visual elements. The persistent buzzing of bees carries on throughout the film,

intensifying in moments of stress. The Macedonian landscape is an equally idyllic and isolating setting – Hatizde and her mother, Nazife, seem to be the only inhabitants for miles.

The documentary abruptly begins with a stunning view of rolling hills and a vast mountain

range. But you have no idea where you are, what year it is, or who this person is you’re watching scale a mountain with no climbing gear. The camera follows behind Hatidze Muratova, a middle-aged woman in a bright yellow top and billowing skirt carefully but confidently walking along a narrow trail.

As if it were a secret hiding spot, the film’s protagonist turns her attention to a

particular nook in the mountainside and begins to extract honeycombs using only a rusted

machete and a mellow tone of voice to calm the thousands of bees that engulf her. She moves the honeycombs to a stone wall near her house, where she leaves half of the honey for the bees and takes the other half to the nearby capital, Skopje, to sell.

The visual juxtaposition of the uninhabited landscape with a contemporary cityscape and bustling street market is jarring. Aside from the high-quality camera work, there is no indication of modernity until this scene. Surprisingly, only twelve miles separates these two worlds.

The slow, steady pace of the documentary is interrupted about one-third of the way through,

when a shabby, noisy truck approaches from the distance. Out comes a small army of

rambunctious children and their parents. Meet your new neighbors.

Hatizde is friendly and welcoming to the Sam family at first, realizing they speak Turkish like

her. But once the patriarch of the family, Hussein, takes an interest in beekeeping to provide for his children and repay debts, the relationship sours. Hatizde demonstrates the proper technique but Hussein lacks patience and care, perhaps because of the urgency to provide for his family.

His rushed and clumsy beekeeping eventually causes all of Hatizde’s bees to die. A close-up shot on her face reveals a true anxiety, knowing months of patient cultivation have been wiped out by Hussein overworking the bees. Her resilience briefly cracks. For the first time, we see Hatizde defeated.

After their failed attempts to herd cows and cultivate honey, Hussein and his family pack up and leave the mountainside, leaving Hatizde with no honey to sell to provide for her mother, who grows more ill by the day. Her mother Nazife has not left her bed in almost four years and depends entirely on Hatizde. Despite living isolated from the world tucked away in the

mountains of Macedonia, the relationship between the two is refreshingly typical and relatable.

There is worry, frustration and affection. Scenes of Hatizde coloring Nazife’s hair or feeding her bananas are touching and intimate, but with melancholic overtones. On multiple occasions, Nazife murmurs from underneath the covers, “Why don’t you just leave me here?” Hatizde replies without hesitation, “Where would I go?” It’s clear that Hatizde has not been taken care of, but rather cares for, everyone she interacts with—including the bees.

The more chaotic and humorous moments in the film come from Hussein’s seven or eight

children (I lost count because they are never sitting still). They roam free around the land,

occasionally helping their father cultivate the honey or herd cows, but mostly rough-housing

with the cattle or each other. And they fight to win – I think back to a cringe-worthy scene in

which a child no older than 5 is thrusted into a splintered tree trunk and hits it with rib-breaking force.

She cries for a few minutes, but not nearly long enough. When the children are being stung hundreds of times while their father coldly yells at them to keep cutting honeycombs, it is these unusually candid scenes that exhibit the apathy that underscores their way of life. Pain is a by-product of labor and triumph. In order to succeed, sometimes you have to get stung.

Directors Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska gathered over 400 hours of footage of

Hatidze and her mother Nazife, mirroring this exercise of cultivation that is patient and

conceptual. Hussein’s scurried and exploitative technique produce short term gains, but he

abandons the landscape as soon as it stops producing desired results. The fragile relationship between human and nature is both revered and exploited in this film, contemplating larger themes of human impact on the landscape and disrupting the natural order.

REVIEW: Good Boys

By: Catie Cornell

There’s nothing good about the movie Good Boys, there’s only great. For a movie about

sixth graders, the movie is for anyone but. Filled with prepubescent boys dropping “f bombs," sex toys, and lots of talk about the human body and it’s, uh, capabilities, all I have to say is don’t see this raunchy, side-splitting, yet sweet, one with your mom.

Marketed as, from the guys who brought you Superbad (producers Seth Rogen and Evan

Goldberg) viewers should be expecting dry humor, with cringy moments that can’t help but make you giggle, which is exactly what they will get.

The movie begins with Max, played by Jacob Tremblay (a very different role from his

previously Oscar-nominated one in Room) manipulating his video game character to have much larger breasts, and then, you guessed it, attempting to masturbate. His father (Will Forte) interrupts the moment, and when he realizes what’s going on, praises his son- starting off the film with laugh-out-loud timing that consumes the rest of the 1 hour and 35 minute run time.

The film then introduces the two other members of the “Bean Bag Boys," Lucas (played

by Keith L. Williams), and Thor (Brady Noon). While it’s tempting to pick out a star of the

show, each of the three boys is individually hysterical. All three nail the comedic timing of the

one-liners, provided by writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, that have proven to be a

challenge for other actors.

When the three boys are invited to a kissing party, their desperate attempts at preparing

for their first night ever of locking lips takes them on an adventure filled with CPR dolls, sex

toys, hard drugs, and a dislocated shoulder that leads to one of the funniest movie scenes of all time- topping the iconic middle of the road bathroom break from Bridesmaids.

Lucas’s rule-following personality mixed with the internal struggle of dealing with his

parents new divorce announcement, leads him to be morally correct at a time when he shouldn’t necessarily be- like when he tells a police officer he is carrying drugs. This directly conflicts with Thor’s rebellious, just wanting to fit in, personality. Max is the group leader, who connects the three boys with his sweet temperament. The combination of the three boys, with the hilarious situations they have found themselves in, creates a film that will, plain and simple, make you laugh.

The story of the three boys adventure of the day is fast-paced, and goes from one event to

the next, never missing a beat and preventing viewers from feeling bored or wanting more.

While the plotline is highly unrealistic, it doesn’t matter. Audience members do not need a

wildly unpredictable and mind-blowing plot, they have the unique humor to entertain them.

Most of the humor stems from the relatability of the jokes, as most of the amusement

comes from the young boy’s naivetes and ignorance about the real world and all that it entails,like sex and drugs.

It cannot help but remind viewers of what they once thought about the world

and how wildly incorrect it was (including, as Thor states, four sips of beer makes you an

alcoholic… which is really cool!). Its highlighting of the young boys and their perceptions of

certain things can’t help but make viewers feel nostalgic while they’re laughing.

The best part is that the film, while it doesn’t need to be, is actually somewhat touching.

It reflects on the challenges of growing up and realizing things might be different than you once expected, whether that be in terms of friendships, major life events, or family.

So no, good boys isn’t good. It’s hilarious. It’s touching. It makes you think and makes

you laugh. What more could you want?

REVIEW: The Goldfinch

By: Talley Davidson

It was the night of the premier, and the theater was completely empty. I was sitting all

alone in my row with my crumpled ticket in that I bought online beforehand, assuming the debut of “The Goldfinch,” based on Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, would be full.

Any empty theater on the film’s opening night would typically seem unusual, but on a Friday

night in a college town, most students find other things to do than spend a whopping $13.50 on a movie ticket. Nevertheless, while the empty theater didn’t scream “SUCCESS!” for this film, I had a headache by the end of it from the amount of beautiful, devastating and captivating emotion it put me through.

“The Goldfinch” is based in early twenty first century New York City, just three years

after the 2001 terrorist attack on the twin towers. Yet, while bombing and terrorism are the

catalyst to the rising action of this movie, it’s not the focus. What the audience soon learns is that one bombing, one painting and one trivial teenage mistake are the perfect storm that ruins 13-year-old Theodore Decker’s (Ansel Elgort) life.

The film opens with Theo in an Amsterdam hotel room in the present day. His hands are bloody, the hotel room is trashed with drugs and the sky outside is a haunting navy. The voiceover is Theo himself racking his brain in agony to make sense of the mysterious felony he’s committed-- a robbery that all began during the life-altering terrorist attack back when he was 13.

The film transitions between the present day and his teenage years to allow the audience

to piece together the innocent crime of how Theo went from an angsty teenager standing in front of a famous painting moments before a bombing, to a tortured salesman with a depressing upbringing and daunting inner-demons.

What attracts the viewer to Theo’s problem is that his mother (Haily Wist) was killed

during the museum bombing all those years ago, and he continues to blame himself for her death until the present day. The director (John Crowley) manages to prolong the audience’s confusion for why Theo burdens himself for mother’s death and how he became an accomplice to a crucial piece of art being stolen from the Met--two critical points of the movie that change the course of his life.

I found this film to be dreadfully captivating. I’ve never felt more empathy for a character

in a film than for Theodore Decker. I appreciated how the director framed Theo’s flashbacks of museum bombing in a shallow depth of field in an eerie slow motion to allow the audience to piece together the clues of both his crime and parental heartbreak.

Though I didn’t read the novel beforehand, “The Goldfinch” film still allowed me to feel deeply. I experienced everything from sorrow for an orphan to wanderlust through Cowley’s choice of a classical music soundtrack and even pure dumbfoundedness for a teenager’s upbringing that was so perfectly horrible it would give a botoxed beauty worry lines.

The writers did an exquisite job of explaining the reasons behind the unsound decisions

made by humans like Theo who’ve experienced trauma and heartbreak in such a short period of time. “The Goldfinch” juxtaposes art, music, romance and friendship with perpetual tragedy to explain the impulsive actions people take in times of chaos.

"The Goldfinch” may have given me a headache from how convoluted Theo’s youth was,

but the acting was so believable, and the plot was so genius that I’m still pondering the inner

workings of the film half a week later. I wouldn’t see this movie again because, in simple terms, it was three hours of exhausting sadness.