Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Zeshaan Younus
Starring: Jenna Kanell, Hannah Alline, Natasha Halevi, Michael Sung Ho, Danielle
Evon Ploeger
Accounting for 30% of US landscape, the pictorial terrain of the American
desert is often configured as a liminal zone within narrative cinema; a
psychological territory wherein the traveller undergoes spiritual
development and actualisation, a shamanic reward for enduring the
inclement endlessness of rocks and sand and space.... but (ahhh!) does one
find true meaning in the stark exposure of the sun, or fatally lose
themselves in the expanse?
Zeshaan Younus' psychedelic indie dedicates itself to the trope,
exploring grief, friendship and perceived betrayal within its bittersweet
blending of horror and drama. We follow young women Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kenall), who embark upon one last motorbike
journey before Dylan leaves accepted society to join an off-grid cult
called "The Clergy." The women are united in grief following the death of
Dakota (Danielle Evon Ploeger - ace name), who was Cameron's older
sister and Dylan's best friend.
Alline and Kenall are tremendous as they negotiate the once-remove of
their characters' relationship and the inconvenient bond of grief, the
interpersonal conflict metastasising throughout the film. Cameron is wary
of Dylan's plans, but the situation is loaded: Dylan is grieving and is it
really Cameron's place to challenge her? Especially when there is
lingering blame concerning Dakota’s death...
The dynamic is fraught, and the tension is magnified by the infinite
panoramas which Cameron and Dylan race their motorcycles through, either
rushing towards a destiny or desperately away from it. Both the girls' and
the cult's quests hinge upon kindling a relationship with this
increasingly threatening environment. The Clergy is predicated upon
finding the exact location of a confluence within the hinterland which
will realise dreams and desires, while in another pointed sequence Dylan
explains the use of crystals to prime and repurpose energy (Cameron's
reply- "So you've been walking around with rocks in your pocket?"). The
desert is positioned as gorgeous but scarily big, impressively captured
(hot take: snow looks better on film, sand on digital) by cinematographer
Justin Moore, and we cannily transition from the third person
wide-screen to the rough intimacy of POV as the film's mode-of-address
oscillates to intimate found footage. The visual dichotomy emphasises the
film's thematic pursuit; the girls and their trauma, and the unknowability
of a world which is too big and where no one should really be.
Likewise, the narrative switches back and forth to the denizens of The
Clergy, a member of which likens the cult to Jesus "quite literally
walking into the desert." And then what?, one wonders, suspecting that the
reason why most cults go tits up is because there is no mystical
consequence and no real answers in this niche community, but you're here
now, family and friends abandoned, so you might as well push push push and
double down to an inevitable end: a culmination which
The Buildout ultimately cleaves to in the final scenes'
bleak race into the unknown dark.
The Buildout has the abstract presence of a visual poem,
where connections are intangible and sensed rather than causal and
structured. While the denouements were a little too vague for me, there is
no denying the lingering experience of this enigmatic exercise in
sun-kissed weird. There is sublimity in every frame, a sinister beauty
(underlined by the yin yan contrast of Alline and Kenall) and palpable
cosmic suggestion which is deeply felt. A horror that unsettles from
within.
The Buildout is on VOD from
February 25th.
