More likely than not, people have stumbled across a photographic sighting of Bigfoot, whether on the front corner of tabloid print or through fundamental Internet cryptozoology. The image comes in positional variations, but you have most likely seen the movement of a billowing shadow caught between trees, unclear in any defining features other than not-quite-human and not-quite-zoo-primate.
It’d be enticing to say that Sasquatch Sunset brings our PNW cryptid into the light, eliciting questions such as the following: where is that Sasquatch going? Is its journey aimless or focused? Have we been seeing the same one? However, if directors/writers David and Nathan Zeller were aiming to demystify, this film could have been framed as a biting mockumentary with a bit of Steve Irwin-eqsue expository narrative that’d link their actions to Maslowian primal desires. While there are some satirical inklings, Sasquatch Sunset might just be as mythical as the creature.
As it goes, there is no dialogue for guidance — only communicative grunting interluded by the saccharine music of the Austin-based band The Octopus Project. We might be able to gather a semi-conclusion on what the Sasquatches are doing based on our understanding of survival, but you won’t receive an ding! of confirmation half the time. Sasquatch Sunset‘s fogginess is mostly illuminated by our own musings and imposed principles, which is a detail that might bring this to the experimental-lite genre (and perhaps the wide range of reactions to it). In whichever way this may tickle your fancy or offend your sensibilities, I’m hoping that you will be provoked in some way. As for me, I couldn’t stop smiling once I was hooked.
The film is a full-fledged thought project following the Zellners’ short gynecological musing Sasquatch Birth Journal 2. Now with a creature-quartet (Nathan Zeller, Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg, and Christophe Zajac-Denek), Sasquatch Sunset follows the trajectory of their lives over a year, starting with spring — the emergence of winter’s sleep, the green restoration in pine trees, and the introductory fornication between two Sasquatches (watched by the other two in silent curiosity). Despite the aforementioned vagueness, there are recognizable story progressions and intragroup strife, like pregnancy and male dominance, that gives the audience something to hold onto. And in my opinion, there is little illusion about what’s to come: full-frontal erections, unholy fluid excretions, and environmental dread.
Its plain crudeness is the natural depiction of removing our societal imprint on sexuality and human body function, which is less political and more Nat-Geo imitation that it sounds. But once you get over it, you might find a sweetness in these creatures. The group vibes become immaculate once a certain Sasquatch leaves the group, where the remaining three are in sync like a Blue Man Group in Chewbacca cosplay. I especially lose it whenever they start hooting in cacophony — not only because it is ridiculous, but because within this cohort of cryptid lore development, there had to be intentional thought behind how a Sasquatch would sound and behave (individually and together). A lot of the comedy is physical, which I particularly find endearing in performances from Keough and Zajac-Denek.
Stepping outside of my experience, I can see where things can go wrong from the viewer’s perspective. It looks like an acting exercise, one might say when the Sasquatch encounter a paved road for the first time. It’s trying too hard to be thoughtful, one might think when scenes of shitting and masturbation are cut to the majestic views of a Californian forest. Why even bother getting Eisenberg and Keough if you can’t really recognize them? one might skeptically share when seeing the baggy eyes of a Presley descendant buried beneath fur. And truthfully, you can’t entirely convince someone with emetophobia that a vomiting scene is worth watching, or to earnestly describe that a Sasquatch’s dick is similar to that of a duck’s, which probably is a reference to their aggressive copulation tactics. You’re in or you’re out.
But I can’t deny that others feeling a negative type of way makes me feel even closer to these guys. It’s gross but it’s also gentle. It’s primitive but it’s nurturing. At the end of the day, how else would you have wanted to depict a Sasquatch? In fact, it’s high time that we think about their needs, especially in the implications that we may see oddities come out of the woodwork in the impeding doom of deforestation and rising temperatures. The question, really is: will you behave when you meet one?
Sasquatch Sunset
2024
dir. David and Nathan Zellner
89 min.
Now playing at Alamo Drafthouse Seaport
