"Honey" [Semih Kaplanoglu, 2010] - movie review

If you are not yet aware, I have a soft spot for movies that go off the beaten tracks. And I will happily follow so far off that track to venture into completely unknown scenarios and human experiences, to get that mental journey to unexplored territories that feed my curiosity. "Honey" is just such kind of movie, taking place in a remote mountain range of Turkey, telling a story about the son of a honey-collector family.

Let me just say that taking on this kind of task, using a six year old main character, telling his intimate story while bringing the raw beauty of this astounding region into play at the same time, takes the best of directors. Sadly he only manages to handle the cinematography well, which is up there with the best that movie history has to offer.

The story of the boy is not nearly as developed as the setup demands, to balance out the monumental presence of this setting. I am certainly not blaming the 6 yo actor who delivers what could be expected of an actor at that age. This is a directional failure in my opinion, and the movie would have gained immensely from using an older actor at another stage in his expressive maturity.

There are several scenes where the boy´s acting limitations make you think about acting rather than immerse in the story. This is not quite a fatal blow, but a serious misjudgment in my book. This makes me wonder if the director really just wanted to impress me with his immaculate landscape shooting and awesome cinematography

Taking off from Cartier-Bresson´s old quote about "sharpness being a bourgeois concept", a movie needs to also have a human story that is engaging while preferably also having a meta-story that deals with general philosophical or psychological aspects. The choice of lead actor here, almost sacrifices these aspects in its need to be pleasing for the eye.

This is a slow-burner of a movie and that is fine with me. I love when I get time to digest the visuals and bring my own thoughts and experience into the movie. I mention this since the lack of an engaging story, further puts emphasize on the rather mute and strangely iconic feel of the way this nature is treated. Interiors are very picturesque also in their almost "19th century romantic painting" presentation at times.

For your average main stream film-critique, this would probably fall right in their need to express their intellectual prowess, by referring to the fantastic cinematography. But without the more important human story that is here being treated as a kind of necessary "evil" by the director, it nearly falls flat on its face.

Don´t get me wrong, I REALLY want to like this movie, but no matter what the undeveloped story is always there to remind me that nature is just nature, beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. The human story I would be able to take with me, not the awesomeness of Turkish mountain ranges.

6/10