Sasquatch Sunset

4/25/2024

Movies that provide us with an inside look at the lives of communities different from our own can show us just how much alike – and not alike – the constituencies of those cultures truly are from our own. It’s especially intriguing when such films cross species lines, examining societies of beings different from ourselves, an undertaking tackled in the latest project from the acting-writing-directing duo of David and Nathan Zellner. Known for such offbeat releases as “The Art of Self-Defense” (2019) and “Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter” (2014), this time out the filmmaking siblings present a documentary-style look at a year in the lives of a bigfoot family of four inhabiting the forests of Northern California. The camera follows them through a variety of everyday situations not unlike what we

7/17/2024

As a fan of the filmmaking brothers David and Nathan Zellner and their offbeat brand of humor and awkward storytelling style, I had much higher hopes for “Sasquatch Sunset” than I guess I should have. Disappointingly unfunny and too reliant on gross-out gags, this weird movie about the antics of a bigfoot family is a massive misfire on every level. This absurdist film is set up like a bad nature documentary, a strictly observational look at a year in the life of a sasquatch clan. There’s the alpha (Nathan Zellner), the female (Riley Keough), the male (Jesse Eisenberg), and the child (Christophe Zajac-Denek), and their existence is not all that interesting. They forage for food and explore the forest around them, with lots of sniffing, barking, farting, defecating, and scratching along t