Tamara Kotevska’s elegant and moving The Tale of Silyan is proof that great beauty can be found in documentary filmmaking simply by going with the flow of life. Starting in one place and taking a turn that’s both thematically perfect and wholly unexpected, this tale of a farmer who befriends and cares for an injured white stork is the kind of project where Kotevska can simply let things play as they are and see where the day takes everyone. The Tale of Silyan is a gentle modern fable rooted in tradition, family, and economic crisis, but also a movie about our relation to the natural world. A lot of thematic ground is covered by Kotevska (Honeyland), and all of it fits together perfectly.
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Nikola has made his living as a farmer in the Macedonian village of ?ešinovo for decades, but things have never been this dire. The problem isn’t a bad harvest (actually, quite the opposite), but the fact that wholesalers are refusing to pay what the crops are worth, a side effect of recently passed government legislation and standards that favours buyers and not farmers and consumers. Although Nikola joins the mounting protests against the unfair treatment of farmers, there’s not much in the moment that can be done for his family run operation. His son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter move to Germany with hopes of landing steadier work, and soon his loving and supportive wife, Jana, joins the rest of the family to help them save money on child care. Left alone and struggling with the notion of having to sell off most of his land to make ends meet, Nikola takes a job at the local dump. There, he rescues a white stork with a badly broken wing. Nikola takes the bird to a local vet, who has no clue how to deal with exotic animals. They tell Nikola (somewhat bluntly) that if he wants to help this stork survive, he’ll have to care for it himself until they can find a special wildlife program that will take it.
The Tale of Silyan takes its name from an 18th century folktale, in which a farmer curses his son for leaving home, turning the young man into a stork. The irony of this isn’t lost on Nikola or Kotevska, but the parallel between oral tradition and modern life isn’t the sole purpose of The Tale of Silyan. Nikola’s sadness and frustration is expertly conveyed by Kotevska, particularly a sequence where surplus crops have to be dumped because there’s no way to sell or use them all. Nikola is a prideful man, but his family has been working hard for almost nothing. It’s a bleak and sad look at the plight of the modern European farmer, but also a hopeful tale about human connection and finding the strength to carry on and regain confidence through a simple act of human kindness.
Kotevska also ensures that The Tale of Silyan is a gorgeous big screen-worthy experience, with stunning skylines that stretch on forever and lands that are rich in natural beauty and wonder. With The Tale of Silyan, Kotevska has stumbled across a wholly original and uniquely human tale of survival, healing, and love.
The Tale of Silyan is now playing in select cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal.
