Sasquatch Sunset Review: A Profane And Profound Look At Creatures That Never Existed [Sundance]

How far does a bit have to go before it stops being a bit? It's been conventional wisdom that the Sasquatch (aka Bigfoot, aka "The Legend of Boggy Creek," aka that rad dude from the Jack Link's commercials) is not nor has never been a living creature, similar to the dozens of other fellow cryptids that have followed in its wake. Yet belief in the Sasquatch continues to this day, and while a portion of that belief can be chalked up to urban legends, mental illness, and the like, there seem to be as many or more people who perpetuate belief in Bigfoot simply because they enjoy the idea. In other words, it's a bit, but they're committed to it.

"Committed to the bit" perfectly describes the latest feature from The Zellner Brothers (David and Nathan) entitled "Sasquatch Sunset." The film is a 90-minute-long slice-of-life, documentary-style collection of footage that follows the daily trials and tribulations of an average Sasquatch family. There's no dialogue, just a collection of grunts, groans, howls, and other bodily functions that serve as the main form of communication between the creatures. If Sasquatches were real, "Sasquatch Sunset" would serve as a "Planet Earth"-style unfettered look at their existence, their socialization, their habits, and their place in the animal kingdom.

Of course, Sasquatches are not real, and it's in that truth that the uncanny tone of the film lies. Given that what we're watching is a film featuring human actors in makeup acting like mythical creatures, the movie could be seen as a tedious exercise in irony, an overlong sketch, or an "Adult Swim"-type troll (the movie's penchant for scatological humor would lend itself to this interpretation). Yet there's something else at work in "Sasquatch Sunset," as indicated by that title; the film ultimately feels like a moving expression of something that the author John Koenig dubbed "anemoia," where a sense of nostalgia is created for a thing that never was.

The film chronicles the lives of a Sasquatch family: a patriarch (played by Nathan Zellner himself!), a matriarch (Riley Keough), their eldest son (Jesse Eisenberg) and youngest son (Christophe Zajac-Denek). Their days seem to primarily involve getting their basic needs met, as with most animals. They forage, fart, and fornicate, and never in any particular order, as their actions seem to be almost totally in response to whatever stimuli is around them at any moment.

Through the din of such monotony, however, a few intriguing quirks begin to emerge. The female 'squatch becomes enamored with the smell of her own sex, but violently refuses the male's clumsy attempts to initiate coupling. The elder son attempts to count whatever objects he happens to find, but sadly cannot count above three. The younger son, meanwhile, begins using his right hand as a sort of puppet character, making it "talk," eat snow, and other such imaginative silliness. While these Sasquatch have not formed a spoken language, their behavior seems to mark them as having above the average intelligence of an animal, and below the intelligence of an average human.

Thanks in large part to Mike Gioulakis' gorgeously bucolic cinematography, "Sasquatch Sunset" is a remarkably watchable movie, despite the numerous attempts by the Zellners to gross out their audience — at one point, the 'squatches are so frightened by the discovery of a paved road that they decide to excrete every bodily fluid possible onto it as a way of asserting dominance. Despite the moments of immature humor, the film features four performances that feel utterly considered and observed (of animals in general, since actual Sasquatches were out of the question). It's honestly difficult to see the actors' real faces through the makeup, allowing the illusion of living, breathing Sasquatches to feel complete.

Part of the reason "Sasquatch Sunset" feels a little deeper than just a comedy sketch stretched out to feature length is because this is not the first film the Zellners have made on the subject: in 2011, they made the short film "Sasquatch Birth Journal No. 2," in which a female 'squatch gives birth to a baby. Not only is this moment reprised in "Sasquatch Sunset," but the credit rolls of both films make mention of the Zellners consulting various Sasquatch and Bigfoot research groups. Whether any of these groups are for real or not is almost beside the point — the Zellners wish to treat the creatures with respect, and portray them as realistically as possible. The comedy lies in the term "realistically," of course, since it's paradoxical. Yet the Zellners have made a film that goes beyond the bit-committing tone of "har har, isn't it crazy we actually made this?" that would easily sink it.

Some will no doubt feel the film sinks anyway, as it glides along to a quiet finale. Like so many other examples of slow cinema, however, "Sasquatch Sunset" finds meaning in the margins, the little moments adding up to a bigger resonance. One gets the sense from the film that this may not be an average Sasquatch family, but rather the last Sasquatch family, a group of creatures who are at extinction's doorstep and somehow, deep down, recognize it. This feeling is most keenly felt when the  Sasquatches happen upon evidence of human activity; we're never shown a human in the whole film, but it's readily apparent they're out there. The Zellners cheekily use these moments to "explain" (or at least address) the most infamous elements of Sasquatch legend — one scene sees the 'squatches trash someone's campsite, for instance.

Ultimately, "Sasquatch Sunset" is an uncanny movie, the cinematic equivalent of the Tamagotchi virtual pet. In both the toy and the movie, it's abundantly clear that we're not dealing with living beings, and yet their verisimilitude is great enough to fool us. Isn't that what all fiction is, at its core? If becoming emotionally invested in Batman, Luke Skywalker, or Barbie is generally acceptable, why not the equally fictional Sasquatch? As a celebration and an elegy for a creature that isn't and never was, "Sasquatch Sunset" is kind of beautiful and kind of ridiculous. Only in the movies, darlin.'

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10