Presence
Perhaps it has to do with my own particular schedule, but this year’s Sundance feels like it has more high-concept big swings than ever. I’m seeing far fewer of what one might traditionally call “Sundance movies” those dramedies about families who learn something about each other, usually on a road trip. There is nothing traditional about the three films that premiered on the second full day of Sundance 2024 a ghost story told from an unusual perspective, an existential drama riffing on “WALL-E”; and a dialogue free movie about a family of sasquatches. You don’t see these every day.
The best of the bunch is from a filmmaker who merits his own chapter in any book about the history of Sundance: Steven Soderbergh. The masterful director brought “sex, lies, and videotape” here 35 years ago before taking home the Palme d’Or at Cannes and permanently altering the independent film scene. It’s thrilling that he’s still making movies like nobody else, still playing around with form in ways that feel fresh and exciting, still reminding us that he is one of cinema’s great storytellers.
“Presence,” like many of Soderbergh’s best films, is deceptive. It seems relatively easy to summarize and looks like it would be relatively easy to make. But there are so many layers to this clever genre exercise that I’ve been turning it over in my head since it ended; it almost has a cinematic presence itself (I’d say haunting but then you might think ghosts).
Ever since he came out of retirement, Steven Soderbergh has seemed freer than ever to make things just because they excite him I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if “No Sudden Move” and “Kimi” end up being among his best. I hope he keeps using his passion for the craft in fun new ways like “Presence” for as long as possible.
If first ghost POVs aren’t your thing, how about a film about a buoy falling in love with a satellite? That’s the premise of Sam & Andy Zuchero’s “Love Me,” one of the most debated films from the first weekend of Sundance 2024. A technical marvel and ambitious setup give way to a little too much existential drain circling in the movie’s final third, but Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun hold it together enough for me. It’s funny because I have a feeling people are either going to madly love or passionately hate this movie when it comes down from the mountains of Utah, but I’m stuck in between.
Many years after humankind has destroyed Earth, an intelligent buoy breaks free and moves into position so that it “sees” a satellite orbiting around the planet. Apparently NASA launched such a helper satellite into space, which contained thousands of files about Earth’s history for any future interplanetary visitors who might wonder what went wrong. The buoy and the satellite connect, and the half of them still bound to Earth gains access to most everything humans have ever done, especially all the cute shit on YouTube. Amidst laughing babies and dancing dogs, however, is also a viral personality named Deja (Stewart), who made noxiously cute couple videos with her boyfriend Liam (Yeun) while making Blue Apron recipes and watching “Friends” on date nights. Renaming itself “Me,” the buoy becomes fixated on relationships themselves with this newfound knowledge and dubs the satellite “Iam,” developing an avatar (think “The Sims”) relationship with it.
It’s cool. And then it’s still cool. And then it’s less cool. If you get what I mean.
The Zucheros are asking big questions about how we model relationships after pop culture, define love through almost mundane repetition and respond when those we love go off whatever romantic timeline is in our heads. The problem is that they not only usually don’t provide answers to these questions often, they don’t even finish one before moving on to the next! At a certain point, it starts to feel as if “Love Me” is too hyper when it needs to be reflective too many of the same ideas, not enough conclusions. Stewart and Yeun are typically great, finding ways to make their progression from tech to human feel real, but too often “Love Me” feels like an idea in search of a movie.
The same could be said for “Sasquatch Sunset,” a film that produced the most walkouts that I’ve seen so far this year. I jokingly told the guy sitting next to me that the walkout over/under was set at 25. You should have bet the over. The likelihood is that the dozens who fled didn’t know that this strange comedy is a film with no actual dialogue, a story told in grunts, bodily fluids, and longing stares under mountains of sasquatch make up. Yes, it’s a film about sasquatches who live off the land, struggle to survive, and operate on primal urges. It’s a fascinating experiment, and one has to admire the commitment to the bit, but said bit grew old for me pretty quickly. I was bored before the halfway mark. At least I didn’t walk out.
“Damsel” makers David and Nathan Zellner are behind “Sasquatch Sunset.” Jesse Eisenberg stars as Riley Keough alongside Christophe Zajac-Denek and Nathan himself as four sasquatches living somewhere in what looks like Washington state or Oregon or maybe British Columbia (you could tell me it’s anyone under there and I’d believe you). They wander around, eat leaves from trees then poop them out then find other trees to eat leaves from then poop those out too; they also have sex with each other (I think), look for more of their kind who might still be alive somewhere out there in this big world (I assume), and grunt (a lot). It’s kind of funny at first but gets more serious as it goes along.
That’s about all they do in “Sasquatch Sunset.” There are some funny beats here and there throughout but not enough variation overall to keep things from feeling monotonous after awhile although I’ll give credit where due. The Zellners know how to make an ambitious movie, and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis shoots these woods in a way that’s both beautiful and creepy (he also shot “It Follows” and “Us”). I don’t want to be too hard on “Sasquatch Sunset” because I want the Zellners to keep making crazy movies. I’ll probably like the next one better.
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