Tale of Silyan – Film Review
by Hugh Maguire

Director – Tamara Kotevska
Writers – Suz Curtis, Tamara Kotevska
Stars – Aleksandar Conev, Nikola Conev, Aleksandra Coneva

Documentary – A farmer’s bond with a white stork intertwines with North Macedonian folklore.

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.  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.   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.   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.

The key protagonist here, Nikola, has one such friendship.  He is a sun-worn farmer who, along with his wife and daughter, toils with enormous effort on the fertile lands of North Macedonia.  The soil produces an abundance of delicious crops, but ‘market forces’ ensure that nothing sells at the wholesale market.  All the back-breaking work is in vain. Through circumstances far beyond his control, his family, like the storks, emigrate to sustain their lives.  Nikola is left alone with a degrading job at a municipal dump, which highlights so much of what is wrong with the world.   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.  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.  On a practical level, we recall our need to engage with all creatures.

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

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.