Primitifs

A "nature" film follows four Sasquatch living in their habitat. Going through the natural cycle of the seasons and mating season, they travel through the woods. As they migrate across the region, they sense a change, encounter strange things, and experience tragedy.

This movie is supposed to be a comedy, which may be appropriate if you are really into dark humor. However, the movie has no dialogue, which can cause your attention to drift. Quite a few WTF moments will make you laugh and take a moment. The movie's underlying premise is how humans affect the environment and natural habits. This movie is not for everyone, but it will impress you if you can get through it. Stream it for something different.

I had a real hard time trying to figure out a score for this film, much less an overall impression of it. Frankly, you just don't see film like this any more.

I can understand if some audiences don't get it, mainly because it feels like the Star Wars Holiday Special on a severe drug bender. But once you peel away the Sasquatch mating rituals, birthing scene and other idiosyncrasies that make up this experience, you start to piece together the meaning the Zellner brothers were most likely seeking. They posit the reason why we don't see sasquatches is because they just don't exist anymore.

Like the last days of a failing empire, this very well might be the last Sasquatch family in the Pacific Northwest. Some people won't like the reasoning behind it, but it's the usual blame falling on deforestation and human infringement. I'm sure some might derive more meaning, but this is the base understanding I took away from this film.

Sasquatch Sunset is definitely not for everyone, but if you are a curious film goer, you might find something interesting in this bizarre and completely one of a kind movie. Just be ready for weird nature stuff....because I sure wasn't.

Almost uniquely odd, "Sasquatch Sunset" won't appeal to all. Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Christophe Zajac-Denek & Nathan Zellner (unrecognisable all under heavy & impressive prosthetics) are a family of sasquatch (aka bigfoot and/or yeti) seen roaming the Californian jungles over a year in the '80s. The screenplay (from David Zellner - who co-directed with brother Nathan) is divided into the four seasons, thru which the four forage, fish, re-produce, and curiously react to their surroundings. Having no narration it's not a mockumentary, but also with no dialogue (except grunts etc) it won't easily engage everyone, despite being interesting & relatively well made.

Rating: 6.1 Overall, a decent film that mimics a nature documentary as we use to lens of the camera to look into the lives of sasquatches and how they parallel humans, but this movie was not really for me because of the excessive use of bodily fluids and grotesque comedy.

Decent to Pretty Good Direction (The direction on a macroscale is pretty good as they set the scenic shots well and show the beauty in secluded nature; the direction on a microscale is decent as they get a lot out of their actors through action-based acting (because there's no dialogue); storytelling is very slice-of-life (making it feel somewhat like a documentary), but there are some moments where they try to move the story forward)), Pretty Good Acting (Pretty Good from the cast (The whole cast acted as a unit to portray Sasquatches going about their day, and showed how they do have a good amount of humanity to them)), Decent to Pretty Good Story (The concept is interesting as it's a slice of life look into sasquatches (which helps give them humanity and show parallels to humans); the plot structure is not really present as the movie tries to be mostly slice of life, while also shoving in shock and grotesque humor; flow between sequences is pretty bad as lot of the movie feels disjointed; character writing is decent as it helps show the parallels between humans and sasquatches), Decent Screenplay (the humor is pretty overt as they try super hard to shock and show grotesque subjects (with this sometimes hitting and sometimes not); the symbolism is decent as it's about looking at humanity from the lens of Sasquatch; the foreshadowing is nonexistent), Pretty Good Score (Used well in the establishing shots), Pretty Good to Good Cinematography (Used well in the scenic/nature shots as it helped make the movie seem like a documentary), Pretty Good Editing (The way they cut the movie gave it a nature doc feel), Pretty Good Sound (Helped show the actions of the characters), Decent Visual Effects (Uses Practice effects well), Pretty Good Production Design (The nature setting is nice and helps show the wilderness), Very Good Makeup (Good use of full body makeup), Makeup (Good use of full body makeup), Very Good Costumes (Good use of costumes to make the actors look like sasquatches), Costumes (Good use of costumes to make the actors look like sasquatches), Pacing is very slow as a lot of the movie drags with its elongated/repetitive scenes, Climax is decent but just feels like a continuation of the rest of the movie, Tone is very similar to nature documentaries (with some comedic flavors), This movie was really not for me with the excessive bodily fluids and grotesque scenes; saw the Texas Premiere at SXSW.

There are some beautiful things about this film. The photography is one of them. The music is also fitting. The rest is meh.

I guess one could dig deep and try to find as many meanings as one wants into this movie and that is certainly something that we should cherish. Spoon-feeding movies are not the solution. However, I'm pretty sure we can find a balance between an on-the-nose flick and this.

It is categorized as a comedy/drama/action/adventure, depending what website you check. Truthfully, if you have the sense of humor of a 12 year old, I can see the fun in it. However it becomes old quite quickly. When it comes to the drama...I don't know? When something bad happens is because the creatures are just stupid.... And when it comes to action or adventure? The most action-like moments happen off-screen and how can there be any sense of adventure when there is no sense of purpose. Meaning, direction, discovery, and desire?

There is no momentum, there is nothing going on but eating, having sex (or trying to), and pooping. I guess these are all worthy things to explore in a film, but making a feature film out of this is a bit ridiculous. I could this being a short film from some filmmakers trying to establish their style and showcase their skills, but a feature film? What for? We had at least a dozen eating scenes and none were substantially different than the others or had any particular implication.

I still give it a 5/10 because, as mentioned at the beginning, it is a movie that looks and sounds good. Too bad there is no story or rhythm or anything going on really.