Sasquatch Sun­set – Gross-out larks with an anthro­po­log­i­cal twist

To save you a few unnec­es­sary clicks, don’t both­er head­ing to your search engine of choice to find out what the col­lec­tive noun is for ​“Sasquatch”. Aside from a few spec­u­la­tive fun­nies (“a syn­di­cate of Sasquatch”) you like­ly won’t dis­cov­er any­thing con­crete, as there was only ever thought to be a sin­gle incar­na­tion of this myth­ic and patent­ly-Amer­i­can rov­ing beast.

Nathan and David Zell­ner, the minds behind 2014’s great metafic­tion­al quest movie, Kumiko, the Trea­sure Hunter have a new film called Sasquatch Sun­set, and it doesn’t deliv­er any fur­ther clar­i­ty on pre­ferred gram­mar usage. It does, how­ev­er, offer a dream­like win­dow on the lives of four mod­ern-day Sasquatch sub­sist­ing like unbathed hip­pies out in the delec­tably lush wilder­ness. With their oppos­able thumbs and humanoid frames, it only takes a lit­tle nar­row­ing of the eyes to see past the clot­ted fur, fur­rowed domes and flap­ping pen­cil winkies to under­stand that these Sasquatch are being used as avatars to tell a very earthy and human story.

The film cov­ers a year in the life this tight-knit clan as they munch on the flo­ra and fau­na around them, engage in mat­ing rit­u­als that are only occa­sion­al­ly suc­cess­ful, build huts from branch­es and leaves, and inter­mit­tent­ly sound a rhyth­mic call on the trees lest there be oth­er mem­bers of their dwin­dling species in the envi­rons. There’s no real rhyme or rea­son to their exis­tence beyond present tense sub­sis­tence, but the Zell­ners have fun by chart­ing some of their nat­ur­al learn­ing curve towards some­thing like domes­tic­i­ty. As our Sasquatch cousins don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly do much to fill their days, there’s lots of detail about bod­i­ly func­tions and, as such, there’s a whole rush­ing riv­er of excre­ment, urine, vom­it and even a bit of blood. Even as the film adopts a detached, faux anthro­po­log­i­cal mode, you do end up forg­ing a bond with these lov­able lum­mox­es, and even though the film leans heav­i­ly on gross humour, it’s not at the expense of a bit of heart.

Even­tu­al­ly, as the year winds on and the Sasquatch roam ever deep­er into their pris­tine Arca­dia, they begin to see signs of human encroach­ment: a tent pitched with a full snack ham­per and boom box (loaded with ​’80s club bangers); plumes of smoke ris­ing up from a wild­fire; and, most com­i­cal­ly, a tar­mac road harsh­ly cut­ting through the tree-line. The Sasquatch’s reac­tion to the road will be the film’s com­ic high­light for those with the stom­ach for it.

Under­neath the suits are Riley Keough, Jesse Eisen­berg, Nathan Zell­ner and Christophe Zajac-Denek, and they all per­form com­mend­ably due to nev­er let­ting up on the joke. Yet what makes Sasquatch Sun­set a cut above what some might per­ceive to be an extend­ed Fun­ny or Die sketch is that it’s craft­ed with such care and with a sense of cin­e­mat­ic grandeur, achieved via Mike Gioulakis’ gor­geous, mussy cin­e­matog­ra­phy and the gen­tle pas­toral sounds of The Octo­pus Project on the soundtrack.