They’re big, they’re hairy, they’re an urban myth that refuses to die — they’re the mythological creatures known as Sasquatches, those reclusive figures occasionally seen wandering in the woods and who may or may not rock a size 22 men’s shoe size. Some may doubt their existence, given that they tend to shun social interaction, and most evidence suggesting that they lope among us consists of grainy photos and cryptic video clips. David and Nathan Zellner have no time for such doubters, however. These filmmakers traveled deep into the wilds over the decade ago, camcorders in hand, and emerged with Sasquatch Birth Journal 2, a 2011 Sundance-coronated short in which a mama Sasquatch squats in a tree and gives birth. Somewhere in the heavens, Marlon Perkins was beaming.
Now, the sibling directors have gone once more unto the breach, and returned with a chronicle of a whole family of these woodland denizens. Sasquatch Sunset captures a bigfoot quartet in their natural habitat, engaging in all sorts of signature Sasquatch-esque behavior. Watch them forage for grub. And fuck. And commune with their various neighbors who inhabit the forest, from skunks to elk. And fuck some more. And angrily throw their feces at various real and perceived threats. And nurture each other in a way that suggests that this whole manufactured exercise in Sasquatchery is really an allegory for the glorious, complicated human experience. And try to persuade their mate to let them fuck them one last time, please.
We don’t think any of the descriptions above count as spoilers, per se, because that would suggest a narrative of sorts, and the Zellners clearly aren’t aiming for telling a linear story. A year in the life of four missing links, Sasquatch Sunset looks like a documentary, smells like an elaborate prank, and rests somewhere in the interzone between NatGeo and Adult Swim. Much like its subjects, this mix of indie-cinema tones and tongue-in-cheek levels is neither human nor simian, speculative anthropology nor full-waxed-mustache hipstertude, completely straight-faced nor insufferably twee. It works far better as a free-floating vibe than a movie, which can be read as a backhanded compliment or a sign of surrender. At the very least, you’ll never think about a mother Sasquatch squirting breast milk in a state of panic the same way again.
It’s spring when we first meet this family, which means the season of renewal has begun and love is in the air. Translation: The group’s patriarch (played by the co-director Nathan) is feeling randier than usual, much to the supposed — chagrin? indifference? annoyance? — of his female partner (Riley Keough). Imagine that infamous Quest for Fire scene before enlightenment begets the missionary position, and you get the idea. Two younger Sasquatches blankly look on as the adults grunt, heave, and pant. The older of the two (Jesse Eisenberg) is either in his late Sasquatch teens or early Sasquatch twenties; the other one (Christophe Zajac-Denek) might be around middle-school age, assuming that the Sasquatch educational system works the same as its Homo sapien equivalent, and also that most Sasquatches aren’t home-schooled by default….
Sorry, we lost our Sasquatch train of thought there for a second. So when the alpha male of the group unexpectedly finds his amorous advances rebuffed, he becomes moody and starts hoarding all of the berries, the ones that grow in a particular bush and leave whomever eats them feeling light-headed and giddy. Then he discovers mushrooms growing in the forest, which further opens the doors of his Sasquatch perception. Just when you think the big guy is about to discover a large black monolith and learn the secret of how to turn tossed bones into spaceships, he instead encounters a mountain lion. Soon, the quartet becomes a trio.
Incident drifts into incident as the family ambles along over the hills and past the trees of the Pacific Northwest, sometimes veering into slapstick — watch out for that turtle! — sometimes becoming highly scatological, and sometimes detouring into violent, gory tragedy. They can find each other via a series of rhythmic stick-thwacks if they get lost, yet communication overall is a series of grunts. (You’re likely wondering: The Zellners probably don’t provide subtitles for these exchanges, do they? Our reply: Does a Sasquatch shit in the woods? Which we can at least confirm is a question they do answer in this movie.) Months pass. Seasons change. Mom’s belly swells, courtesy of a baby growing inside it. Curiosity becomes both a liability and an asset. There’s also a growing sense of awareness among them about their surroundings, especially when red X’s began showing up on trees and a large log of lumber in a lake spells disaster. Any ecological message-mongering may be subliminal here, and shares screen time with fart jokes and lots of finger-sniffing. (We beg you, don’t ask.) But it’s present nonetheless.
Still, Sasquatch Sunset is meant to be experimental in structure and experiential by design, letting viewers walk a mile in these creatures’ XXL footsteps and seeing the beauty and horror of nature as these often gentle giants do. The movie practically demands that you consume it with something that will alter your own mindset, though we’d suggest you don’t choose the same mushrooms that Papa Sasquatch did. The cast may be saddled with prosthetics that cover them head to bigfoot toe, but their eyes are plain to see, which allows for a different kind of emoting and extra emphasis on physicality. Eisenberg, Keough, and Zajac-Denek are all fluent in a performance mode in which a cock of the head, a darting glance, a defeated gesture or a deadpan stare tell you everything you need to know. As for Nathan Zellner, well … you’ll certainly believe his Sasquatch is perpetually horny and tripping.
There are films that overwhelm you in the moment, then fade away from memory with every step you take from the theater and/or with every end credit that scrolls by as you reach for the remote. And then there are movies that refuse to leave your waking thoughts, nagging at you and nudging their way into your daydreams, even if they don’t exactly leave you shrieking their praises. Sasquatch Sunset is a textbook case of the latter, piling on enough quirkiness to almost get on your nerves before suddenly swerving headfirst first into the sublime, rinse, repeat. The last five minutes in particular pack a seriously cryptic payoff, yet you won’t be able to stop mulling it over for days.
The Zellners and their collaborators may have delivered either an extended in-joke about America’s collective conspiracy-theory imagination or a thesis about what it means to truly be alive that just happens to include beaucoup Sasquatch erections and someone lustily eyeing a hole in a piece of wood. Regardless of their intent, they’ve also touched on something basic truths. A family is a family, covered in matted fur or not. Love means never having to grunt you’re sorry. You still have to engage with a world that feels as if it’s shrinking, or being cut to shreds, even if you can’t articulate how or why. The sun always sets. But it also rises.
