Movies like Hundreds of Beavers remind us that no matter how bleak the current Hollywood landscape may be if you peek outside, you will discover untold pleasures. It’s a testament that while by no means as well funded as in previous decades, the indie scene is alive and well for those who care to look.
Mike Cheslik’s Hundreds of Beavers is the kind of movie that is impossible to describe without sounding like you’re making it up. Cheslik and his star and co-writer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews have crafted an immensely inventive slap-stick comedy that pays homage to the silent era, Looney Tunes cartoons, and video games. Part of the charm of Hundreds of Beavers is the way it wears its influences on its sleeves without also being a cinematic Wikipedia stopping to cite all its sources.
While it may have inspiration and, at times, use those inspirations as references, its style and tone are all its own. In other words, it uses its material to make something recognizable while being unique. The influence of video games is obvious even to non-gamers like myself. While I may not be a gamer, I have played Super Mario Brothers, not to mention the many hours I spent watching my friends play through Zelda.
Cheslik and Tews intertwine video game sensibilities in a way that argues that video games are art. Or, at the very least, contain an artfulness that stays with the players long after the game ends. Cheslike and Tews recognize the cinematic language video games use and reinterpret it for their own uses. Like the film’s ode to silent comedies of Keaton, Chaplin, and Loyd, the most striking thing is that it feels from the heart. They aren’t making these references to be cool or hip; they’re making them because they want to, and whether or not you get them is beside the point.
Oh, and the animals are all people in costume. In an era dominated by plotcels and a strange obsession to be “real” in the most boring way possible, Hundreds of Beavers stands like a middle finger. Cheslik’s Hundreds of Beavers sometimes feels hallucinogenic, calling to mind fellow Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. Both have a way of taking the snowy bleakness of the Great White North and finding great surreal beauty and horror in the unforgiving landscape.
Hundreds of Beavers is a black-and-white silent-ish comedy about a drunkard, Jean Kayak (Tews), who starts as Elmer Fudd and ends the movie as Bugs Bunny. The genius of Cheslik and Tews’s comedy is that even when Tew’s Jean wins, he will still fall on his face. It’s not an arc or growth so much as Jean leveling up and learning the rules of his absurd and cruel world.
The absurdity of Hundreds of Beavers is oddly comforting. It reminded me of Stephen Aubier and Vincent Patar’s A Town Called Panic. The characters in this French farcical stop-motion movie were children’s toys, and the comedy was blisteringly and darkly hilarious. Much like Hundreds of Beavers, it moves with the force of a runaway locomotive, chugging along, tossing one gag after another until it crescendoes into utter madness.
Perhaps it’s because we live through such interesting times that seeing a movie that matches the absurdity of our news acts like a balm. If that idiot Jean Kyak can come out on top every once in a while and get the girl played by Olivia Graves, then there might be hope for us yet.
Shot by Quinn Hester and edited by Cheslik, Hundreds of Beavers ingeniously mixes green-screen effects, on-location footage, and cheap sets with cardboard cutouts. The result is a tactile fantasy world that operates by its own internal logic—a logic that may befuddle us but feels consistent within its own framework: anything for a laugh.
Orson Welles once said, “Every performance looks better in black and white.” I believe this to be true, as I can not imagine Tews’s fur trapper playing quite the same in color. Color destroys the illusion and makes the fakery of it all obvious. Plus, Tews and Cheslik understand the crux of a great gag is the reaction. Tews’s reactions run the spectrum of being cartoonish to Keaton-esque, to somewhere in between. My favorite is his nods and murmurs while looking at his bar and apple orchard in ruins.
Cheslik and Tews string each joke together with the flimsiest plot thread, but it’s sturdy enough to make its runtime seem earned. Like Airplane, it understands that you don’t need a plot that people are invested in; you merely need one that’s propulsive enough to dawdle for the laughs.
The two go out of their way to build a plethora of kitchen sinks for the sole purpose of tossing them into the mix. Hundreds of Beavers is a movie that constantly surprises with its inventive weirdness. And when you think it can’t get any weirder, the Beavers dressed as Sherlock Holmes and Watson show up. It’s then you realize that Hundreds of Beavers is only just getting started. It’s a helluva thing to witness.
Images courtesy of Cineverse and Vinegar Syndrome
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