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The tale of men departing into war only to suffer casualties, while women heroically pick up shattered pieces, is as ancient as history. It is also the simple premise of writer and director Blerta Basholli’s riveting domestic drama “Hive,” a film that won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival, which deeply honours feminine elegance and praises its ability to stand tall against the cruel patriarchal set up that exists in Eastern Europe.
The true essence of this story is encapsulated in the character of Fahrije Hoti, played by Yllka Gashi, who in her role exudes therapeutic fury as a woman from Kosovo fighting to support herself and her two children, a young son and a teenage daughter who is not so easy to get along with, along with her father-in-law Haxi, played by Çun Lajçi. She has been in this situation for a while now and although she could have been anywhere from 30 to 40, she likely falls within her years of being in the aughts. The situation certainly does appear as if the years after the war in Kosovo that left a husband missing post-1999 and the entire conflict took place is a lot more realistic.
Fahrija understands that she won’t be able to endure the hardship much longer. The beehives that her husband set up are not enough to sustain her small family. Not to mention the painful bites she is forced to endure on her job, which seethes with the intense capture of Basholli’s camera. So she spearheads a different type of hive in its steer by starting a business of hot pepper preserve which employs other women in her circumstances along with a savvy deal with a local market that is willing to sponsor their products.
Put like this, her venture sounds like smooth sailing which simplifies the manual labour that goes into it, unlike what we witness in the film, which shows a network of patriarchal antagonists shaming Fahrije for daring to succeed in life, and a bunch of intimidated women who do not want to accept her financial proposal, more concerned about voicing gossip. The women’s hesitance is, quite frankly, understandable, especially when Basholli gives us a taste of the obstacles the town places in her path, but more importantly, the misogynistic one, calling her a whore for everything ranging from gettinga license, to confronting male buyers without the comfort of a partner.
The violence gets to a point where one day, it reaches a level where someone breaks her windshield and her car gets vandalized. On a different occasion, there is an attempted sexual assault by the man she is meant to work with. On one of these particularly disturbing days, she and her co-workers notice that their jars have been smashed and their paste is everywhere. With brazen disregard, Basholli captures and documents these occurrences, focusing on the town’s stifling grime and Gashi’s slowly hardening shell that repels the obscene vulgarity that surrounds her world. Sometimes the filmmaker manages to catch glimpses of Fahrije’s suppressed mourning through her compassionate lens, releasing the sorrow where it aches most, making me think of that deeply upsetting scene when the young woman who is being asked to identify a corpse that may or may not belong to her husband.
Knowing that the real Fahrije now has a prosperous pickles and preserves business, the plot somewhere along those lines is not difficult to anticipate, however, the self-assured humanity with which Basholli reaches her destination is still commendable. “Hive,” in its most uplifting moments, puts a spotlight on the enablement provided by indestructible feminine solidarity something Fahrije relives once a cluster of women from her circle finally overcomes their inhibitions and joins her in the dance. Before that, an older woman from the bunch, the no-nonsense Naze, superbly embodied by a deadpan Kumrije Hoxha, accepts the challenge and starts off the dance. There is release and relief in seeing their success: Haxi’s transformation of heart, and watching the clan of euphoric women in the circle celebrating their triumphs with a traditional dance.
Though not a groundbreaking effort, Hive still reminds us how highly important it is to celebrate the women’s unique spirit of resilience, and how much joy that spirit’s cinematic expression can create against the odds.
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