Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life

This 1925 silent, inspired by "Nanook of the North," is the story of an incredible people, the Bakhtiari, who annually move over 50,000 people and a half million animals between their summer and winter grazing pastures in Iran. They ford raging icy rivers and climb/descend a 15,000 foot mountain. Incredible footage; the filmmakers nearly froze to death.

A remake of the story is "People of the Wind" (1976), which is beautifully done. "Grass" is the story of the trek from the winter to the summer pastures; "People" is the reverse trip. Both are available (at last!) on video from Milestone Films.

Grass (1925)

*** (out of 4)

First collaboration between Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack who would later go onto make King Kong. This documentary takes a look at 50,000 Iranian nomads and they dangerous journey across mountains and rivers to get their herds to grass. Overall this is a very interesting documentary but sadly the crew was running out of film when it came time to cross a deadly river and climb a 12,000 foot mountain. With these two scenes being the most interesting sadly there's only a couple minutes worth of footage here.

The first collaboration between Schoedsack & Cooper is a compelling documentary on the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia. Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals cross rivers and mountains to get to pasture. You'll feel like a pampered weakling after watching these people herd their animals through ice cold water and walk barefoot through the snow to cross the mountains while trying to get their animals to walk along steep and narrow mountain paths.

The team of Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack produced a documentary of 50,000 Bakhtiari people and their animals on the Summer migration to winter grazing. The basic worth of this film today is as a time capsule of a "forgotten people" and how they lived during what we in the West knew as the "roaring twenties." A more drastic contrast could not be imagined. Raging river and barefoot mountain crossings are brutally realistic and the animals that disappear under the water do in fact die. To make sure that the audience of the time believed that the story took place, a signed certificate of authenticity is offered up at the end. The version that I saw had fascinating Iranian music that can stand alone and be appreciated without the film. Having said all this, the film is probably of more value to the anthropologist than the casual viewer in search of a good evening's entertainment. The crew had just barely sufficient stock to take the shots that they recorded and there is no fancy camera work resulting from multiple re-takes. The Western inter-titles detract from the experience but are in fact a part of the record since they demonstrate how Hollywood tried to put their spin on the lives of an indigenous peoples lives so that they would be appreciated by the audience of the day. Off-duty entertainment by desert police becomes a "policeman's ball." The producers went on to make the docu-drama Chang (1927) and the totally commercial King Kong (1933). The migration theme is used again in People of the Wind (1976) and in Himalaya (1999). Recommended for those who know in advance what they are getting into -- and then highly recommended for them.

Fantastic documentary of 1924. This early 20th century geography of today's Iraq was powerful. Watch this and tell me if Cecil B. DeMille didn't take notes before making his The Ten Commandments. Merian C. Cooper, the photographer, later created Cinerama, an idea that probably hatched while filming the remarkable landscapes in this film. Fans of Werner Herzog will find this film to be a treasure, with heartbreaking tales of struggle, complimented by the land around them, never has the human capacity to endure been so evident. The fact that this was made when it was shows not only the will of the subjects, but of the filmmakers themselves.