Sweetgrass

I missed this gem of a film at the New York Film Festival last year and finally watched it last night. Sweetgrass is a documentary about a Montana sheep farm. It's an unflinching, unsentimental look at a lost way of life. They filmed an annual event of driving sheep to high summer pastures with no narration or dialog at all. It's really quite something. The film moves very slowly, with lots of wide, sweeping shots, and the effect is hypnotic.



The sheep appear to be Rambouillets. The sheep bleating is the only soundtrack of the entire film.



There's a rather amusing foul-mouthed oration from a fed-up whiny-ass cowboy that was the only real gauge of mood in the film. It sounded like it should be coming from someone stuck in midtown-Manhattan traffic rather than out in the high open range. Range Rage, perhaps?

I would highly recommend checking this film out.