Honeycomb (2022) is an odd prospect. Electively surreal with a minimal storyline, it often feels a little clumsy where it intends to be out-there. But it’s not without charm, even if much of that derives from its long, mood-drenched shots of long summer days. If you can imagine Yellowjackets remade as a Beck video (complete with Nineties setting, maybe, unless all those Doc Martens and hair scrunchies weren’t visual clues after all? Maybe they’re back in?) – then you’re getting close; make of that what you will.
The film follows a group of teenage girls out in the sticks somewhere in the US, pondering what to do with the summer ahead of them. Without planning anything, it looks like they’ll be doing what they did the summer before – that is, hanging out with a group of local boys who dominate the conversation with whatever trivial comes to mind. But Willow (Sophie Bawks-Smith) has found an abandoned cabin out in the woods, where she says she’s been secretly staying for a while. She wants the other girls to join her there, and when they agree, the next conversation is how much to allow the boys access. Whether they’re with the boys or not, their presence or otherwise still dominates a lot of the girls’ conversations. Anyway, they are permitted, but gender differences redouble as the boys continue… largely as they were, whilst the girls begin to run things along certain rules – meaning a sudden upsurge in nastiness when the rules are broken, albeit it’s given the same oblique treatment as everything else, and occupies little screen time, in the grander scheme of things. But it’s there, ticking along.
The ‘honeycomb’ of the title refers to a couple of different things, though all of these overlap on the idea of a closed community, sealed against the world: bees are a minor theme in the script, and then of course there’s the mysterious ‘bee girl’ portrait in the cabin which is mooted as a kind of household god by some of the girls. The main point, if there is one, is that bees live by strict hierarchical rules, and can be brutal in the pursuit of them: where Yellowjackets runs through a similar theme/setting/cast with terse energy and narrative lucidity, Honeycomb is stylistically obtuse, allowing long, lingering shots of sunny fields and almost still-life shots of the girls, all dressed for the occasion, to lead things; there’s also that commonplace reliance on oddball synth in the soundtrack to provide atmosphere, which seems to be shorthand everywhere in indie film at the moment…
Aspects of this approach work well, at least aesthetically; the film flounders in other ways, though, most notably in the performances. The immediate question which leaps to mind is: are they deliberately acting like this because they’ve been directed to, or does this just smack of inexperience? Is it stylistics, or genuine awkwardness? You may feel that this works fine with all of the other clearly surreal elements, but for this reviewer, the sense of discomfort and unfamiliarity with being in front of a camera hobbled the film overall. What looks like playing with the fourth wall (or at least leaving footage in which would otherwise presumably be edited out) is also risky, though these kinds of postmodern factors are, again, almost expected in indies.
There’s a wish fulfilment aspect to the film which isn’t displeasing. This idea of the ‘summer to remember’ which – although it goes sour – is an important part of adolescent life, offers a good source for cinema: there’s a tiny dash of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) in here in places too (a film I gather the director hasn’t in fact seen!) It’s probably wise not to fixate on the reality or unreality of this particular set-up, given the direction and approach the film takes, but still – the idea of parents not caring or knowing where their children are, or the heavily-signposted mentions of the absinthe they’re about to drink and what it’s going to do to them: some of these aspects feel a little too simplistic or naïve. But hey: your enjoyment of this film will very much come down to how much patience you have for these sorts of avant-garde, dreamy, unreal exercises in indie film. It’s a little too muzzy for me, but others will approve of the surreal, liminal qualities (particularly critics, I’d be willing to bet, rather than general fans). It’s a first-time feature from twenty-two year old Avalon Fast, too, so if this is any indication of their work to come then we have a filmmaker who isn’t afraid to take creative risks: that’s no bad thing, with potential for the future.
Honeycomb (2022) will appear at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 on Monday 25th July.