Filming "Sasquatch Sunset" must have been really fun: hanging out in the redwoods of Humboldt County, grunting at fellow actors, munching on foliage, screeching, hopping around, peeing on stuff, group-napping, breastfeeding. Watching "Sasquatch Sunset," on the other hand, is not fun at all.
Many older Millennials have a USB drive sitting around somewhere that contains old footage of them and their friends in high school acting dumb. They’ve probably been known to rewatch it from time to time and smile and remember the inside jokes. And, at some point, they will have shown this footage to a friend: “Oh my gosh, look at us. Isn’t this so funny?” and the friend, not having been there or known any of these people, will have not found it at all funny. Watching this movie feels like that friend’s experience.
It's as if writer/director David Zellner’s creative process was something like “We have these 4 people dressed up as sasquatches. They look totally ridiculous. What should we have them do?” –bong hit– “Definitely eat bugs.” –bong hit– “Pick their noses, for sure” –bong hit– “Haha what if they had sex?” –bong hit– “One could get their tongue bitten by a turtle” and so on until they had a couple hours of footage.
OK, maybe that's unfair. The film deserves some credit for being original; it’s not every week you see a feature-length movie with no dialogue and no human characters. Its formal daring, unfortunately, doesn’t prevent it from feeling aimless. And yes, perhaps there’s a point to be made about it being a reflection of how aimless real life can feel—like a random series of gross-out-comedy vignettes. But that’s not what most of us go to the movies to see; it's a truth we can find in any CVS restroom.
When we first meet them, the four sasquatches (Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Nathan Zellner, and Christophe Zajac-Denek) seem content, grazing on flora, picking bugs off of each other, and knocking sticks against trees. As often happens in our human lives, the drama begins after some copulation. The act results in the male party desiring more of it, being rebuffed, and then taking out his sexual frustration on the group. It's a familiar story for many, and we briefly wonder if this movie will explore gender roles further, but it ends up as more of a gag, amounting to the first of a several thematic false starts.
In the second act, the first signs of humans appear: a red x on a tree, a hewn log, a paved road. The sasquatches react to these artifacts with bewilderment or fear or both. It’s funny the first time to see sasquatches pick up a human object and grunt at it, but the joke wears itself out quickly, and unfortunately the only other joke is that the sasquatches are dumb and gross.
With the humor not landing, the film would benefit from a solid story to fall back on. But there isn’t one, really. It unfolds a bit like a nature documentary, touching on various life events, a couple fatalities, and everyday existence. It’s clear that Zellner is intentionally flouting narrative convention. Sometimes that works really well, and sometimes it's "The Room." While this isn't nearly that bad, it's not last year's arthouse success "EO" either. For it to work, the audience has to feel A) enlightened B) blown away by visuals or C) invested in at least one character’s wellbeing. It gets closest to C, but reasons to invest here are hard to come by.
But did I mention the scenery is fantastic? You should check out Humboldt County when you get a chance. One thing this movie does provide is a set of wilderness tips: don’t ingest colorful mushrooms, don’t provoke mountain lions, and pee on anything that confuses you. If you’re looking for more wisdom than that, though, just skip this one and take a walk.
