Hive

A triumph at Sundance last year, Blerta Basholli’s Albanian-Kosovan drama tells the true story of a woman who attempted to set up her own business in a man’s world.

This debut feature by writer/director Blerta Basholli won no less than three main prizes at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival but, even if it had not done so, one would not hesitate to predict that it will be very much appreciated by the public. Understandably there is always an audience for films that comment on countries governed even today in ways that are strongly patriarchal and such works are often the more telling for being made by female directors. Hive not only fits the bill in this respect but carries additional interest due to two important aspects. First, Basholli was born in Kosovo where her film is set thus making it decidedly personal for her and, secondly, it draws on a real-life story exploring the situation of a woman who struggles to support herself and her children consequent on her husband not returning from the war which ended in 1999. Families such as hers who are living with the possibility that the breadwinner who has gone missing might just possibly turn up find their lives dominated by this and it influences the way in which society treats them (this film is set seven years after the end of the war but it seems that the situation remains unchanged even now for many families).

The central figure in Hive is Fahrije (Yllka Gashi) who lives with her wheelchair-bound father-in-law Haxhi (Çun Lajçi), a man in his seventies, and her two children, her daughter Zana (Kaona Sylejmani) who is at school and her son Edon (Mal Noah Sifqiu) who is younger. The burden to support them mainly falls on Fahrije, even though Haxhi with her assistance keeps a hive and sells the honey at a stall. In this society in which a number of others in this locality share Fahrije’s's position, the women organise so as to help one another. But the men see it as a step too far when Fahrije and an older woman who is a close friend (Kumrije Hoxha) negotiate a deal to sell home-made food, ajvar, to a supermarket in the city. They are viewed with outright hostility since for women to set up a business smacks too much of independence and the men show their disapproval by smashing the window of the car used by Fahrije. These local men fully understand why old Haxhi regards her behaviour as bringing the family into disrepute since in their eyes a male should always be the one in charge.

For a first feature Hive is remarkably assured and reveals Basholli as a director with an eye for effective images - and that without losing the sense of naturalism suited to the story. Both the tragedy of families almost certainly bereaved but lacking confirmation of it and the unfair social limitations imposed on women emerge very strongly here. Hive does, perhaps, feel like a small film and that may partly be because what is depicted is a situation rather than a narrative with a strongly developing plot (there is admittedly an emphasis on the chances of it being proved once and for all that Fahrije’s husband is indeed dead, but this aspect leads to a final sequence which can be read in more ways than one). In any case Hive is well cast and extremely well-acted and, regardless of any limitations that apply, audiences will readily relate to it and embrace the film in the very way that Blerta Basholli intended.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Yllka Gashi, Çun Lajçi, Aurita Agushi, Kumrije Hoxha, Adriana Matoshi, Molikë Maxhuni, Blerta Ismaili, Kaona Sylejmani, Mal Noah Safqiu, Astrit Kabashi,

Dir Blerta Basholli, Pro Valon Bajgora, Agon Uka and Yll Uka, Screenplay Blerta Basholli, Ph Alex Bloom, Pro Des Vlatko Chachorovski, Ed Félix Sandri and Enis Saraçi, Music Julien Painot, Costumes Fjorela Mirdita and Hana Zeqa.

Ikone Studio/Industria Film/Alva Film/AlbaSky Film/Black Cat Production-Altitude Film Entertainment.
84 mins. Kosovo/Switzerland/Republic of Macedonia/Albania. 2021. US Rel: 5 November 2021. UK Rel: 18 March 2022. Cert. 15.