Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life

This was soul-provoking! I am an Iranian, and living in th 21st century, I didn't know that such big tribes have been living in such conditions at the time of my grandfather!

You see that today, or even in 1925, on one side of the world a lady or a baby could have everything served for him or her clean and on-demand, but here 80 years ago, people ventured their life to go to somewhere with more grass. It's really interesting that these Persians bear those difficulties to find pasture for their sheep, but they lose many the sheep on their way.

I praise the Americans who accompanied this tribe, they were as tough as Bakhtiari people.

This was incredible, meaning that it was hard to believe, that the "forgotten tribe" would make this astounding migration twice a year, and that the filmmakers, Cooper and Schoedsack, didn't stage some of the scenes and shots. But what shots they are! The cinematography, under mostly extreme conditions, is brilliant, and the score of Iranian music added to the video release give this memorable documentary an added richness.

I had the pleasure of seeing this and "Kon Tiki" on the same weekend, which was a thrill and certainly made me see how tough and hardy and brave people can be, whether for primitive survival or the need for adventure or in the name of science.

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.

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.

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.