In Hive, writer-director Blerta Basholli tells the story—based on real events—of Fahrije (Yllka Gashi), who lives in a Kosovan village that has been devastated by the kidnap and suspected murder of a large portion of the village’s male population during the war in Kosovo in the late 1990s. In the aftermath of the war, as hope steadily decays into grief, Fahrije attempts to organize the local widows into a cooperative to produce and sell honey and ajvar (a popular form of pepper and eggplant condiment). The ghosts of the past still linger, as many of the remaining men—the aged fathers-in-law of the town used to a patriarchal system where women are nonworking wives and daughters—lash out against the women taking on new roles and responsibilities in their uncertain futures.
Basholli’s film is a gorgeous and tightly crafted work of realism, capturing the struggles and hopes of the community through lingering camerawork. Trauma is woven throughout the film; the village both through its individual members and its collective stumbles through different modes of dealing with their pain and uncertainty. Gashi is wonderfully nuanced in her portrayal of Fahrije’s stern but vulnerable demeanor, as a woman who is straddling the past and present, who ultimately must choose to risk alienation from both to survive.
Overall, Hive is a largely understated film, one in which there are no major sweeping moments of uplifting discovery, an exceptionally moving glimpse into the hopeful perseverance of a group of women who are some of the first in their society to come to terms with the ways in which their world has forever changed. In Albanian with subtitles. 84 min.
Wide release on VOD and streaming through Gene Siskel Film Center
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