SXSW Film

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

The first part of Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie hints at an unfortunate tendency in recent anthro-indie doc making (ferret out a weird corner of American culture, edit wittily, make halfhearted claims of empathy). Its subject, after all, is two not-so-beautiful losers, Dallas and Wayne, who make endless forays into the Ohio woods to capture footage of blurry shapes they call Bigfoot. Dallas – a Reiki practicioner who hoots ancient Sasquatch calls and claims to have an "animal bone" in his head – is the mystic; Wayne carries more heavily the weight of being a former high-school bully who now works at a car wash. Somewhere in this carnival, the film turns into a heartbreaking meditation on friendship and the ways in which class and caste can destroy the lives of the working poor – or at least render a man a little mental. A mournful, respectful portrait of a middle-American underbelly, Bigfoot is subtle, human, and touching – not at all typical.