{"id":350122,"date":"2025-12-17T01:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/350122\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T01:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:56:08","slug":"tale-of-silyan-film-review-no-more-workhorse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/350122\/","title":{"rendered":"Tale of Silyan \u2013 Film Review \u2013 No More Workhorse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Tale of Silyan<\/a> \u2013 Film Review
by Hugh Maguire<\/p>\n

Director \u2013 Tamara Kotevska
Writers \u2013 Suz Curtis, Tamara Kotevska
Stars \u2013 Aleksandar Conev, Nikola Conev, Aleksandra Coneva<\/p>\n

Documentary \u2013 A farmer\u2019s bond with a white stork intertwines with North Macedonian folklore.<\/p>\n

A seventeenth-century Macedonian legend tells how a young man, Silyan, despairs of his humble country life and aspires to leave to see the world.\u00a0 Telling his father, he draws down parental curses. With that, a flash of lightning and anotherworldly source turns the son into a stork. Somewhat like the Children of Lir, he is destined to travel almost endlessly. While he travels the world, he is not at ease. Silyan is never fully accepted by other storks, and in time, he wishes to reunite with his estranged father. \u00a0 All the while, the father has bemoaned the loss of his only son. The legend is no more unlikely than reality, and throughout this heartfelt and beautifully evocative film, the close relationship between humans and these giant creatures of the sky is made abundantly and evocatively clear. Indeed, a quick click on Google will highlight any number of tales of what amounts to a love relationship between humans and storks. \u00a0 As with the film, it seems this is very much men and storks, with storks returning year after year to the same farmer or boatsman and remaining inseparable for the season.<\/p>\n

The key protagonist here, Nikola, has one such friendship.\u00a0 He is a sun-worn farmer who, along with his wife and daughter, toils with enormous effort on the fertile lands of North Macedonia.\u00a0 The soil produces an abundance of delicious crops, but \u2018market forces\u2019 ensure that nothing sells at the wholesale market.\u00a0 All the back-breaking work is in vain. Through circumstances far beyond his control, his family, like the storks, emigrate to sustain their lives.\u00a0 Nikola is left alone with a degrading job at a municipal dump, which highlights so much of what is wrong with the world. \u00a0 Without being preached at, we see the degradation of the land, the world of abundant and fertile nature being destroyed through greed and corruption. We are close up with the storks, the mighty birds of the sky, scavenging in the refuse.\u00a0 The abundance of plastic, in turn, poisons and kills their own broods. Nikola rescues an injured bird, and the relationship has echoes of the local legend, recalling the link between a father and a lost son.\u00a0 On a practical level, we recall our need to engage with all creatures.<\/p>\n

Around this core relationship, the narrative fabulously highlights any number of serious issues \u2013 issues that might in other hands encourage a sense of despair.\u00a0 However, we can also see the love of family, the ongoing love and flirtation between a married couple, which redeems the narrative.<\/p>\n

Although a National Geographic film, it is still not a literal nature documentary. Instead, it is a tale of survival and warmth, reminding us of the importance of friendship and loyalty to our calling, in this case, the farming traditions of the place and the love of a partner and family. It is full of haunting images which stick with us long after the credits roll.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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