“SASQUATCH SUNSET” My rating: B (At the Screenland Armor)
89 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Sasquatch Sunset” arrives with a reputation: Apparently at early screenings it set near-records for audience walk-outs,
Well, screw those guys.
I found this bizarro fantasy from sibling filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner to be pretty damn wonderful, a sort of comic tragedy with no dialogue, a jaw-dropping matter-of-factness when it comes to bodily functions, and a cast of players so hidden behind fake hair and prosthetics that they are unrecognizable.
Unfolding in the what appears to be the forests of the Pacific Northwest (the luscious cinematography is by Mike Gioulakis), this is the story of a family struggling to survive.
Our protagonists are Papa Sasquatch (Nathan Zellner) and Momma Sasquatch (Riley Keough) and their two boys (Jessie Eisenberg and Christopher Zajac-Denek). They live a nomadic life, always in search of food.
Initially “Sasquatch Sunset” mimics nature films (or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s like the “Dawn of Man” sequence of “2001: A Space Odyssey” blown up to feature length). The camera captures these shaggy hominids foraging, interacting with other wildlife (elk, skunk, badger, cougar), and employing branches to construct temporary lean-tos for sleeping. They also horse around. Recreational play is part of their daily existence.
They don’t talk, exactly, but they do communicate through grunts, moans and shrieks.
Periodically they will use heavy logs to pound in unison on tree trunks. This is their version of jungle drumming; they hope to make contact with others bigfoot clans. Alas, their messages elicit no response. Perhaps they’re the last of their kind.
The National Geographic aspects of the film are often in counterpoint to a thick current of humor running throughout.
There’s a slapstick encounter with a turtle, and much emphasis on bodily functions. (Like the great apes, the sasquatch throw their own feces at interlopers.)
Papa Sasquatch is particularly amusing. He’s a hirsute Homer Simpson with a taste for fermented berries and psychedelic ‘shrooms. When his amorous advances are angrily rejected by Momma Sasquatch, he becomes fascinated by a log featuring a seductive-looking hole. (Thus cementing his genetic kinship with human males.)
About halfway through, though, the mood darkens. We discover that the Sasquatch bury their dead, leaving little abstract sculptures of bent twigs on the grave in tribute.
And it comes as something of a shock when our hairy heroes encounter a tree marked by a huge red X in spray paint. Later they will angrily tear up a human campsite (but not before gorging themselves on Cheetos). And their minds are completely blown when they stumble across a roadway winding its way through the woods.
There’s no plot to speak of, just a series of episodes. But over “Sasquatch Sunset’s” brief running time we come not only to recognize these animals as individuals with their own personalities, but as representatives of a much larger struggle between survival and extinction. There might just be a lesson there for the rest of us.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 