Sweetgrass

'SWEETGRASS': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another of the more critically acclaimed documentaries from last year, this one tells the story of modern day cowboys herding sheep one last time through the Absaroka Beartooth mountain range in Montana in the summer of 2003. It's directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor (although uncredited), a Harvard anthropologist, and llisa Barbash (his wife) and produced by Barbash. The film has no music or narration and appears to be somewhat randomly edited together with no real story or message to deliver. It's extremely slow paced and lacking any kind of focus.

The film follows a family of sheepherders as they make their final summer herd through the mountains of Sweet Grass County. It was filmed in 2001 to 2003 at a time when this was still a way of life for some. There's very little dialogue and what there is contains a lot of vulgar language. The film is not rated but would be rated R due to the extreme amount of F words used throughout. We see the herders at their grimmest and most unlikeable as they toss the sheep around and constantly curse them out.

The film is, as I mentioned, very slow and quite dull for almost it's entirety. The scenery is beautiful though and the video is somewhat intimate. It often feels like the herders don't even know they're being filmed as they go about their daily business. It's definitely not a film for everyone and will only please a select audience but if you're into honest documentaries with no other BS you'll probably enjoy it.

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Have disagree with the reviewer who said this was not an accurate portrayal of sheep and shepherds. There are different management practices and this movie depicted one of them. These folks shear in late winter and lamb in the spring. Shearing before lambing is done for several reasons--less moisture in the barn from long, wet wool; easier for the lambs to find the udder when it isn't buried in wool. In my experience with sheep, I've found that ewes definitely find their lambs both by sound and by smell. That's why they are put in small pens, called jugs, for a day or so after lambing so that they can bond and learn to recognize each other's unique sound and smell. That's why the ewes will reject any lamb that doesn't smell or sound like their own. I thought the movie was beautifully filmed and accurately showed the hard and sometimes frustrating work that goes into managing a large range flock.

At one point in this wonderful work, the camera is high in the Montana Beartooths above the cowboys with their 3000 sheep coming up the mountain for some good-weather grazing. The woolies are getting to be all over the place and you see a lone cowboy in the saddle with the help of a few sheepdogs corraling the herd purely by the way he moves his horse around and by the calls he makes. Gracefully and neatly he tightens up the herd and turns it in the direction he wants the little bleaters to go. He creates a fence invisible 'round his woolies.

It's that kind of skill, no, art that is so evident in these guys: keeping order in the herd, whittling rough branches for the spines of their tents, sleeping with one ear open for sounds of bear and wolverine, sharpshooting in the night aided only by lamp. These guys do it all and well. They can also midwife a ewe in the crisis of giving birth, find an udder for an orphaned lamb and cleanly, expertly fleece these critters when the wool is heavy.

These cowboys never get rich inspite of a bagful of skills and talents that leave the viewer in respectful admiration. Watching the travail of these guys makes you realize you have never in your life known the true meaning of "hard work."

This is a documentary without any taped-on background music and without any warm-toned narrator telling you what you're seeing. Not even Morgan Freeman. The footage tells the story without extraneous aids. The absence of other noise is welcome. This piece is awesome but it's also funny, not just in the humanity of the cowboys. There's some real comic talent among those woolies, too. Jim Smith

Though at the time it seemed a bit slow in parts, I thoroughly am reliving wonderful moments in this film. It is simply about a season of sheep herding. Very little dialog - no fill-in music or annoying narration. Just sheep, and their ranchers. The scenery is beautiful. I would love to see this movie on a huge screen with HD to truly enjoy the Montana mountains. But it is grand. There are a few squeamish moments - but it's all in the life cycle of a sheep. We get to share in the boredom, excitement, and frustration of the sheep herders in a very personal way that I'm sure has never been shown before. It is a jewel of a movie and definitely worth the time if you have a chance to see it.

Sweetgrass is a documentary, literally: a document of a particular place, time and events. There's no narration, no host or guide, and seemingly no attempt to edit the footage to tell a story. Each scene appears to be chosen because it illuminates the subject, rather than for drama.

The camera records a group of sheep farmers and herders preparing a flock and getting them across the mountains. The focus is on everyday details of animal tending and herding, straightforward and unsentimental. The people working with the sheep seem mostly unconscious of the cameras, just going about their business. It's like seeing into another life.

Of course, it's another life that's centered around sheep. If that sounds boring, this probably isn't the film for you, because that's all there is to it, and it's slow-paced. It's very different from Discovery Channel style documentaries that try to teach and entertain. There's no Mike Rowe here to relate everything he's doing to you so that you can understand what's going on.

But there's something to be said for just watching things happen.

The movie isn't trying to reach out and explain itself to you, and that enables it to draw you in, if you're willing to go along for the ride.