The acting is good, although extremely methodical and cerebral. You get the feeling that every character is heavily thinking about each action they make, which fits the mood of everyone walking on egg shells, but tends to make the film feel very much like an arthouse piece. This could make it difficult for Mr. Jourdan to raise funds to make a full length feature of the film, since most arthouse-paced dramas don’t turn a lot of profit.
The visual look of the film was very good. This was shot on Super 16mm film with an Aaton camera and it made attractive use of the shallower depth of field that S16mm film is capable of (as compared to most digital video or HD). The shot composition was excellent, and CUs and XCUs of the actors faces really helped you understand what was going on in their heads despite the fairly slow pacing of the editing and acting.
Other than a few times where there were some minor background audio issues and perhaps one problem with sync match up, the audio was very clean and easy to understand. It was a little bright in its register, which was a little strange for the somber feel of the film. Mixing in a little more bass to the voices would have made the voices seem a little more subdued, which would have worked well.
The music was fairly simple, but it fit the film without distracting the viewer from the overall story. The use of sound effects were fairly effective, most notably through the buzzing of bees, which was used to highlight different elements of the story.
$15,000 is a decent amount of money for a short that takes place in a single house, but much of this went to film costs, including film stock and developing. Remaining funds were spent on craft services, transportation, and hotels for everyone. As such, this was a pretty decent use of money.
While the final feature film might have a decent amount of lasting appeal, especially for folks who like the pacing of a cerebral arthouse film, The Beekeeper as it exists now is of much more limited appeal. The impressive visuals and audio make it worth watching for other filmmakers who wish to be inspired, but the extremely ambiguous ending are likely to confuse most people.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions in the current version of The Beekeeper, so we look forward to seeing if Mr. Jourdan can extend this concept into a feature and show the entire story of the drama surrounding The Beekeeper.
