Chattanooga FF:: The Buildout : A Story of Grief from a Young Director Trying to Find Himself

MOVIE INFO:

friendship is tested as two women experience something strange in the desert.

REVIEW:

The Buildout, the first feature film debut of director and writer Zeshaan Yonnus is neither a horror film nor drama with tinges of sci-fi, but a somewhat shakey combination of the two. It tries to bridge the gap between found footage horror and traditional dramatic storytelling.

The story at its core is one of how grief affects each person differently. The California desert setting allows The Buildout to function thematically as both a religious purge, similar to Jesus’ forty day wandering in the wilderness, and a meditation on the good and bad values of faulty psychological support systems.

The journey is suppose to take the two lead women, Cameron (Jenna Kanell) and Dylan (Hannah Alline), to a spiritual commune that Dylan plans on joining. When they get there it has been abandoned except for one tent, filled with cryptic sketches, journal entries and staticky cassette tape recordings scattered about. Before that, everything was a fun last girl trip together, a memoriam to honor Hannah’s deceased sister and Dylan’s once best friend. As they get closer and night creeps in with the doubt, Hannah starts seeing apparitions of the dead sister, soon, Dylan too.

Nothing is ever resolved or even explained. Yonnus keeps it all mysterious and ambiguous. He’s not trying to find answers but show the women’s relationship and how grief effects that relationship. For twenty minutes it’s a dazzling display of brutal honesty, recriminations, genuine painful longing and grief being expressed. The problem, everything around that moment is tedious, bits of joyful bike riding and superficial conversations that overstay their well shot and acted moment. It could of have been better handled if Yonnus had dropped the horror and sci-fi trappings and just concentrated on the essentials- why one became religious, the other agnostic.

Alline and Kanell have fantastic friend chemistry. Their shifts between joy and anger are believable. It feels like true grief being expressed in its many awkward and direct ways. It’s only when they encounter the horror and sci-fi parts does the joyous trancelike state of The Buildout get interrupted. The time the two spend motorbiking the desert are a grounding exercise, an example of their friendship at its most ideal. There might be too much joy being seen, but I never tired of seeing that exhilaration.

The alternating found footage and standard shots really only add confusion. It breaks up the clarity of friendship being established, just gets in the way with its constant undefined pov switching. This is a typical debut mistake- dazzling technique not matted to editing and story sense. All The Buildout needed to be a stellar debut, instead of a flawed and failed one, was for Yonnus to believe in his characters and actors more.

The Buildout gets a 3.0/5 or a B. It’s being shown as a part of the Chattanooga Film Festival that runs virtually from June 21-28.

CREDITS:

Produced by

Emily Bennett…executive producerBarbara Cooper…executive producerTrevor Dillon…producerEvan Faber…associate producerChris M. Johnston…executive producerSailor Larocque…producerMatt Latham…associate producerAdrian Leon…executive producerGreg Newkirk…executive producerNicholas Thurkettle…producerZeshaan Younus…producer

Cinematography by

Justin Moore

Editing by

Matt Latham

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director

Jenna Kanell…second unit directorElena Weinberg…first assistant director

Sound Department

Dachi Abesalashvili…Foley EditorJoni Amiranashvili…Foley MixerJacob Bloomfield-Misrach…Supervising Sound EditorTornike Dzidzikashvili…foley artistGreg Francis…re-recording mixerMichel Marrano Holbrook…Audio Post SupervisorWilliam Sammons…sound designerAlexander Sanikidze…Foley Editor

Stunts

Jenna Kanell…stunt performerMichelle Elise Shock…stunt coordinator / stunt double: Jenna KanellJolene Van Vugt…stunt coordinator

Camera and Electrical Department

Chris Heck…still photographer

Editorial Department

Ryan Berger…colorist