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SXSW capsule review: ‘Beeswax’

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By Chris Garcia | Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:15 PM

Filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, who recently moved to Austin and made his latest feature “Beeswax” here, has cultivated an aggressively low-budget, lo-fi way of making movies.

“Beeswax” and his two prior — and far superior — films “Funny Ha Ha” and “Mutual Appreciation” are accidental contributions to the so-called mumblecore movement. These are inexpensive, character-driven features marked by long, meandering takes filled with stammered dialogue and the tics and foibles of semi-improvised performances by nonprofessional actors.

They exude a quirky charm and, when done right, hit their emotional targets with a naked realism you won’t find in blundering Hollywood confections.

Bujalksi’s films observe young adults making their way in the world, tip-toeing the gantlet of love and friendship, work and play, and all the messes these things cause in our lives. “Beeswax” is different in that it presents a more pronounced plot line about an Austin shop owner who’s on the verge of being sued by her business partner. What it’s really about, though, is the caring and devotion that glues together friends and family, even when the glue weathers and peels.

But Bujalski and his cast don’t give us enough to cling to. Rambling scenes are captured in a real-time languor in which story is imperceptibly nudged forward and a valid response to a direct question is: “Yeah. I mean … I don’t know.”

The characters lack vividness. They wear a blank, searching look, and Bujalski lets them hang there and bang around in the dead space. They stammer and giggle, eyes never quite fixed on anything. Save for a few exceptions, they don’t seem real, just vacuous and unfocussed. The camera keeps rolling, encouraging the awkward pauses that expose the discomfort and difficulty of communicating with others. That’s fine, but “Beeswax” remains flaccid and dramatically inert. There’s no tension, nothing to be resolved, and the ending is deliberately left wide open with a pseudo-cliffhanger. It’s a nonending to something of a nonmovie.