- Location: Boulder Int'l Film Society
- Every year for approximately the last century, a team of herders has led a flock of sheep to graze on the lush grass that grows on the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains of Montana. Sweetgrass is their story. To be more precise, Sweetgrass is primarily the story of the sheep. Recorded over the course of three years by a dedicated anthropologist and remarkably talented director named Lucien Castaing-Taylor, the film follows this strange yearly trek through always gorgeous and often rugged terrain. But be warned: this is a minimalist documentary, if ever there was one. The soundtrack consists mostly of a litany of BAAAAAAHs with the occasional snippet of cowboy singing and/or profanity thrown in for good measure. There is no narrator, no music, and very little dialog to distract you. The film has the audacity to ask its audience to sit and watch sheep for a hundred minutes.
- And what a spectacle they are to watch. I don't know who first suggested the idea of counting sheep to fall asleep, but this film proves that approach would never work. First, they're just too damn loud. Nearly every shot that contains more than a few sheep (which is most of them) is accompanied by an absolute cacophony of animal sounds. How the cowboys ever hear and understand one another is completely beyond me. Of course, the other thing that keeps you awake is that the sheep, and the film about them, are so incredibly interesting. Whether they're giving birth in a stable, being fed on the ranch, or getting marched through a mountain stream, these sheep are eminently watchable. Part of their allure is surely attributable to the director, who patiently holds shots long enough that you can slowly drink in every detail. In fact, much of the film consists of multi-minute takes that simply watch sheep being themselves.
- But lest I give the wrong impression, I should mention that there are also some interesting humans in this film. The two most prominent herders are a seasoned rancher named John Ahern and his younger cousin Pat Connolly. John, whose cragged countenance matches the landscape, looks every bit like the Marlboro Man grown old. His taciturnity forms a stark contrast with Pat's talkativeness, which emerges in hilarious bouts of cussing at the sheep or, in a much more revealing scene, in a pathetic call home to mama. Lest we judge Pat too swiftly, however, perhaps we should walk a mile in his shoes. Or rather, a few hundred miles in his shoes while leading several thousand sheep. One thing this film makes abundantly clear is that being a sheep herder is really hard! They camp out on the mountainside for months at a time and wake up to shoot at bears or wolves in the middle of the night. Moreover, nobody, including the film's director, can talk about sheep for five minutes without using the word "ornery." It's unquestionably a rough job, and these folks handle it admirably well.
- The images from Sweetgrass that will linger longest in my mind, however, are those amazing shots of the sheep. The film opens with a wonderful shot of a ewe who gradually realizes she's being watched, giving an impression of intelligence that the rest of the film neither confirms nor refutes. Just a few minutes later, we are treated to the stunning image of thousands upon thousands of sheep piling into a fenced-in yard. There are so many animals here that it almost looks fake, but of course it's not. The film's best shot, however, is a jaw-dropping zoom that guides our eyes across a valley onto a mountainside. One initially guesses what a few of those little white dots must be, but slowly we perceive that there are far more white dots than we suspected. This is seriously one of the most impressive long distance shots I've ever seen, made even more remarkable by the fact that this is Castaing-Taylor's first film. There is no doubt that the bare-bones approach to Sweetgrass is striking, and I can imagine that its intentional slowness would be off-putting to some viewers. Still, I consider this form of documentary to be a welcome break from the standard Morgan Freeman/Liam Neeson-type narration or, worse still, Werner Herzog droning on and on about the fate of humanity. In the case of Sweetgrass, the point is simply that there are sheep and there are herders, and this is how they get along.
- The director was there for a Q & A afterwords, and he was really interesting. Less interesting was the question about herd, herding...herdness.
- Apparently, 2004 was the last year that these herders operated.
