Jesse Eisenberg in Sasquatch Sunset (Bleecker Street)

Brothers David Zellner and Nathan Zellner’s latest curiosity treks the four seasons deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest from the point of a view of a small band of Sasquatches. Through the effective usage of both practical and slick digital effects, the film’s most familiar stars, Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough, in Sasquatch getup, are barely recognizable, if not for their piercing eyes.

It begins with up-close shots that have the precision of a nature documentary, as the camera follows the Sasquatches through the sprawling wilderness. There are many mishaps along the way, mostly comical in the first half, like a dangerous rendezvous with a small turtle. Despite blending in with the straw-colored field where we first seen them tending to and sniffing out mushrooms, these creatures do not seem particularly well evolved, as if they had suddenly been plopped down into these woods from space—or maybe they are just not very bright. Some of the surrounding real-life animals regard them with barely much of a notice or care. A sudden encounter with an empty open road causes a manic existential crisis for the pair, including spontaneous defecation.

Warbling furry creatures being wacky in the California Redwoods at first conjures associations with the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. At first, I thought I was in for an innocuous stoner film, but as it moves along, it becomes more sobering, with depictions of loss and a potent environmental theme (maybe for some, it can be all of these things).

A dynamic shift occurs when the Sasquatches explore an abandoned camp site. Suddenly, for the viewer, objects of humankind come across as stranger and more foolish than ever. The Sasquatches pillage all the plastic stuff in the tent. They nosh on Nerds and DOTS candy, and play a little Erasure on a boombox. That a catchy, fluffy pop song (“Love to Hate You”) is the first music they’ve ever seemed to have heard—initially invoking tears, then, sudden rage—is very funny. The camp site items look very 1992, but the film doesn’t explain that it takes place in any specific time. When it gets to its symbolic depictions of deforestation and wildfires, it feels as if it could take place in any year, but it is particularly pertinent for climate change concerns in our times.

As in the directors’ other works, including the vivid, distinctive Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the film’s crafts are marvelous. A bold score by the Austin-based band the Octopus Project runs the gamut of different motifs: hazy, genteel flute and guitar riffs for humor-imbued, sweet moments; a loud, anthemic rock motif for more sweeping scenes. Dissonant horns play over elegiac, suspenseful, and introspective scenes—a nod perhaps to Jerry Goldsmith’s original Planet of the Apes score, another movie that sometimes feels referenced here (especially in its closing shot) that both contrasts and blurs the separation of the human condition to “beasts.”

The film can be quite gross, and much of this is due to its sound design. Every sound effect is registered, from footsteps rustling through leaves to the squelching noises of consuming meat. Every sniff is a very snotty sounding. I thought maybe I could dismiss the experience of Sasquatch Sunset, but I admit that it lingered long after, causing me to meditate on the pure silliness of humans and the lengths we go to cover up our own base wildness and carnality.