*NOTE: This review was originally part of our Sundance Film Festival coverage.*
Part of the fabric that comprises the Sundance Film Festival, the Zellner Brothers, David and Nathan, have taken audiences on multiple journeys into the weird and surreal. One of my all-time favorites here was 2014’s Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, this oddball road trip journey about an introverted Japanese woman in search of the stolen loot in the Coen Brothers classic, Fargo. The Zellners returned a years later with the Western dark comedy, Damsel. But their most whimsical cinematic experience has arrived this year with Sasquatch Sunset, an expansion of the siblings’ earlier fascination with Bigfoot culture, captured in their short film Sasquatch Birth Journal 2.
The Zellners…I’ve always said they make movies that the two of them would love, and if you happen to be riding the same strange sort of vibe that they are then you’ll forever be a fan. I guess I’m on the same wavelength because their movies always strike a chord. Sasquatch Sunset does as well. Beginning after the infamous grainy photo of a supposed bigfoot captured in 1967, the one that launched a thousand conspiracy theories, the story actually follows four such creatures. Two of them are played by Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough, the biggest names in this movie by far. But if you didn’t already know that, you’d never know it was them buried under all of that fur.
You quickly become gripped by this bizarre, mystical little world the sasquatch exists in. Eisenberg and Keogh’s characters appear to be a couple, or at least they don’t mind bangin’ one another in the woods, disrupting the poor woodland animals trying to eat their breakfasts. In the midst of this hairy fornication, they attract the attention of two more sasquatches, a lunk-head played by Nathan Zellner, and another that appears to be his son or companion, played by Christophe Zajac-Denek.
The movie follows these four as they wander through the woods, eating anything and everything under the sun: fruit, foliage, poisonous mushrooms. There’s a constant danger looming every time they shove something into their mouths or encounter a new predator animal. In fact, there’s threat behind just about every interaction, even among themselves. The sasquatch communicate through grunts, by flinging poop, and simple hand gestures. When the alpha male wants sex, he bangs his fists together and makes wild noises. His mating call is hilariously ineffective, like some sort of stone age incel unable to talk to women.
There isn’t much plot to speak of, but there’s still a lot more going on in Sasquatch Sunset than it appears. Over time, this group of mysterious beasts becomes something close to family, and we feel their urgency as they fight to protect one another from life-or-death predicaments, which happen at the turn of nearly every season. We feel their heartbreak when one of their number is lost, we feel their confusion as contemporary man begins to encroach on the natural world. If there’s a lingering dread in the film it’s as the sasquatches venture further into the realm of man. The discovery of a boom box finds the sasquatch encountering human music for the first time and let’s just say if you aren’t a fan of the New Age soundtrack then you’ll enjoy the beasts’ explosive reaction. By the end of Sasquatch Sunset you might find yourself enjoying a lot about the life of these mythical creatures, and maybe even understanding why they choose to keep to themselves.
Sasquatch Sunset will open in theaters on April 12th courtesy of Bleecker Street.
