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Hive Movie Review

Hive is a 2021 drama film from Kosovo that was directed by Blerta Basholli and starring Yllka Gashi. It is an understated, but emotional movie.

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“The entire village is talking about you“

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Hoping to provide for their families, struggling widows start a business to sell a local food product. Together, they find healing and solace in the new venture, but their will to live independently is soon met with hostility. Famously winning three awards at Sundance, this movie came out of nowhere from a region that wasn’t previously known for great cinema, but now that is starting to change.

As a viewer from Serbia, I’d dreaded the potential political angles in this movie, but thankfully the film is very subtle in that regard and actually much more of a human drama and a feminist tale than it is a war drama, though the 1999 war in Kosovo looms large over the entire narrative. The film makes a point that not only Serbia is to blame, but the Kosovo government and even international organizations for not doing enough to help these people and uncover previous crimes.

Because the men in this village were presumably and quite probably killed and buried in secret somewhere, the women became widows, but the real struggles came when they had to find the ways to earn money in a harshly patriarchal, honestly awfully misogynistic, backwards society that forbids women for even trying to venture into business.

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This feminist angle gave the movie a lot of narrative and emotional force while also providing essential viewing experience for the Western nations that mystify and politicize this region without ever discussing their harsh day-to-day living circumstances and societal problems, such as not only sexism, but also extreme poverty. The movie’s middle section dealt with these issues the most, thus being the highlight of the picture.

Yllka Gashi as Fahrije is a revelation. She was so incredible in such a subtle, nuanced role that is also the heart of the movie. She did receive a lot of praise deservedly so, but hopefully she gets more projects in the future as she’s great talent to watch. The character herself is written surprisingly well while remaining this towering feminist figure throughout the movie’s runtime. This is Fahrije’s story first and foremost with others receiving less screen time, but we get some effective scenes with her daughter and her father-in-law that are at first antagonistic and then quite tender.

While Hive is very moving and admirable in its subtle emotions, the technical aspects are anything but accomplished. The movie’s look is one full of plain gray hues. The cinematography is very ordinary here. Couple that with an almost total lack of score and you’ve got a technically inferior, far from cinematic movie that felt limited in ambition and scope as well. The dialogue is great, but the directing overall could and should have been better.

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There is a lot of intense politicization of Kosovo from both sides that many people forget to focus on the region’s social problems, such as extreme poverty and immense misogyny. Hive is a drama that lifts the veil on these issues by dealing with them head-on. On purely cinematic levels, the movie is too ordinary due to its plain cinematography, serviceable directing and a lack of any score, but it succeeds as this subtle, character-driven drama powered by a terrific central performance from Yllka Gashi.

My Rating – 4