Sweetgrass

Dir: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ilisa Barbash

2009

****

Sweetgrass is a documentary film that was eight years in the making, whether it was worth the time is entirely up to the viewer. I have little interest in farming animals if I’m honest but I do find different ways of life fascinating, so I was on-board, but there are moments in the film that had me questioning whether I was wasting my time. Named after Sweet Grass County, one of the counties the film was shot in, the documentary follows one of the last Norwegian-American sheepherder families in Montana who lead their flock of sheep up into the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor is actually an anthropologist, which makes sense when you watch the film. Sweetgrass is a historical piece, this practice won’t be around for much longer so Castaing-Taylor has decided to capture it as well as he possibly can. I think it’s a commendable action and the fact that he filmed the family over eight years instead of just one season shows just how passionate he was about showing this way of life for what it really is. There are many minutes of the film where we simply see sheep coming down a hill which can be a struggle for most viewers. We don’t learn anything and it’s not particularly entertaining in the classical sense. However, if you let it, this footage can become somewhat poetic. There is something mesmerizing about the flock, the way it moves and behaves. The shepherds have their own language and their actions are completely alien to anyone unfamiliar with what they do. Some of these scenes, the folk descending the foggy mountain for example, are simply stunning. No cinematography, no special effects, Castaing-Taylor simply knew what good composition was and, after eight years, knew exactly where to position himself. After the filming was completed, the editing began and not a single minute of footage was wasted. It’s an anthropological work of art, unsentimental but gracious throughout. I loved that it had no narration and it was a bold and brave move not to have included any music, not even music the shepherds may have enjoyed playing or listening to. It reminded me somewhat of Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro volte (The Four Times) and slow Italian cinema in general but in the classical fly-on-the-wall documentary style. Add narration and the odd interview and you’d have an early Werner Herzog/Errol Morris film. The film shows a harsh reality as the sheep are tossed, dipped, thrown and clipped but there is an undeniable bond between a shepherd and his flock. It’s not just man and sheep though, there is also the dogs, the horses and sometimes the bear. It’s unsweetened and uncensored, a true document rather than 90 minutes of fluff for the casual viewer. It’s a film that should be watched at least once in one’s own lifetime but only when one is in the right frame of mind. It’s a film that immerses you in time, you cannot immerse yourself – if that makes any sense? I think my only regret was that I watched it on the television. I would love to see Sweetgrass on the big screen – hell, after watching I’d like to actually go to Montana and see it for myself before it’s too late. That is the power of a good documentary. Maybe, just maybe, it might be that enough people see the importance of this historical way of life and decide to preserve it, all thanks to the film. Maybe it’s a way of life that has run its course. Either way, I can’t think of a better way of documenting it for future generations, in that sense, the film is an absolute treasure.