Sweetgrass (2009) User Reviews

Woolgathering

[zettaichan · 7/10 · 17 August 2010]

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.

Captures wonderful piece of history

[tapinsharon · 8/10 · 26 February 2010]

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.

Cinema poetry

[JoshuaDysart · 8/10 · 2 April 2010]

This is like slipping into a pastoral dream. The wind. The constant braying of sheep. The idle bits of conversation between the mostly stoic herders. The crack of guns at hungry bears in the middle of the night. That's all the soundtrack offers. These things bleed together and lay over one stunning image after another, meticulously documenting every stage of the caring for and herding of sheep. From birthing new ones to sheering to feeding and then, eventually, to herding a seaming ocean of the creatures across an epic, punishing mountain range. Through it all we witness the exchange between man and animal as horse, dog, bear, sheep and human play out a slow symbiotic struggle to be and do. In its execution and honesty it's literally on a par with the Maysles Grey Gardens. A true document, artfully done and completely free of artifice.

Slice of a vanishing way of life

[cjlay021 · 7 August 2010]

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.

hundred minutes of sheep counting

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 29 September 2016]

In Montana, ranchers are caring for their sheep. They get sheared. They get fed. There are births. After the winter, the ranchers take the herd through the summer pasteurs on public lands in the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains. It is 2003 and it is the last band of sheep.

This is a little zen. It brings the audience into the sheep ranch. It takes us into the herd. I don't even want to have the ranchers talk. The main drawback is that it is not necessarily a 100 minutes worth of attention. I got antsy by the midway point. It would be a better hour-long TV show. The scenery is epic. It has beautiful vast vistas and also the gritty small pictures.

Unforgettable

[jsmith1480 · 9/10 · 8 January 2010]

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

It's a documentary. That means it doesn't need a plot. It is good.

[lilmonty · 10/10 · 8 May 2012]

The reviewer Brian criticizes this movie for not having a plot. That is like criticizing shoes for not being useful as a hat. Brian, you are a fool. This is a fantastic documentary. Yes, it does not have a plot. OK. It is not supposed to have a plot. But it does provide a view of the interplay between sheep, herders, and terrain that you will never see anywhere else without actually doing herding yourself. Highly recommended (unless you want a movie with a plot, in which case you should seek one out to watch instead of watching this).

My children keep demanding to see this movie over and over again. I wish there were more documentaries like this about other things we sometimes hear about but never see.

If you're into honest documentaries like this with no other BS you'll probably enjoy it.

[Hellmant · 5/10 · 21 February 2011]

'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.

Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=003J1CrnYDk

Dull and uninteresting

[bm0042 · 2/10 · 2 May 2010]

I can't believe I saw the same movie as the earlier reviewers. I've never been to Montana, but I have to think it is more beautiful than is depicted in this sorry, plot-less, direction-less and dialogue-less excuse for a movie. It would be acceptable as a one-hour documentary on PBS, and of historical interest, but a "movie"? - not in my book. I'm not a fan of Hollywood blockbusters, but I do like my movies (or documentaries) to have some combination of plot, acting, music, dialogue or scenery - this one has none of them. While I accept that a sheepherder's life is demanding, virtually the only expression of this is via an occasional vocal outburst. Is it a spoiler if I reveal that practically nothing happens for the entire duration of the movie?

Trying to make art out of tedium

[Buddy-51 · 11 September 2011]

A documentary on the life of Montana sheepherders, "Sweetgrass" looks for all the world as if it had been strung together from a series of "Brokeback Mountain" outtakes. I guess that's inevitable given the subject matter and setting, but this seems almost like a nonfiction version of that movie - minus the movie stars and gay romance, that is (and it's not as beautifully filmed).

What most distinguishes "Sweetgrass" from other documentaries is that there is no voice-over narration to explain or analyze what's going on. And the individuals who appear in the film are every bit as taciturn and tight-lipped as one would expect the people in this particular setting to be. The movie simply chronicles the day-to-day task of raising, herding and shearing sheep without feeling the need to comment on what it's showing us. The drawback is that we never get to know much about the rugged men and women involved in the business, what makes them tick (indeed, they talk to their animals more than they do each other). At some point, however, we do begin to understand the toll all this loneliness, physical exertion and exposure to the elements begins to take on the people who do this job.

The result is an admittedly repetitive and frequently tedious exercise in filmmaking that also casts a strangely hypnotic spell over its audience. Perhaps it's the fact that movies rarely just show us people working at their professions that makes this film compelling in its uniqueness. And the image of hundreds of sheep crowding down the main street of town on their way to pasture is bound to stick with you despite any doubts you might have as to whether they are truly fit subjects for a full-length feature.

Poetry? Not in my book

[[e-mail] · 2/10 · 22 May 2010]

I saw "Sweet Grass" with four other people, one of whom enjoyed the Montana scenery, one of whom belonged to a family that had raised sheep and thought the film misrepresented reality and three of whom, counting me, were bored out of their skulls. The dialog -- "Baa" is the dominant word at the start, a multiplicity of curses that would shame a sailor hold sway toward the end, and repetitive out of tune singing is interspersed along with a lot of yips and yells intended to startle the sheep into movement -- is of negative interest. Among the misrepresentations according to the sheep-in-the-family viewer: Mother sheep don't generally recognize their own offspring, certainly not by scent; shearing generally occurs in the summer, not in the dead of winter. (Though I promised my son-in-law 20 sheep as a dowry, which my wife would never allow me to deliver, I can't vouch for any of this. However, there was no slaughtering of sheep for meat, which none of us found credible considering the size of the operation.) However, I can personally attest that this film produces less poetry than the phone book. If you are interested in watching thousands of sheep behave like thousands of sheep and herders struggle with getting them to and from summer pasture, be my guest. But consider yourself forewarned.

Worth seeing but a bit bland

[midtra52 · 5/10 · 9 May 2011]

I know a lot of people say this documentary uses the raw filming to tell the story, but it's just too bland. What they could have done was interviewed the cowboys more. Had them show us how they do some of the basic things involved in the scenes. Instead we're stuck watching for nearly 5 minutes straight as a sheep sits there, then is dragged to a separate pen, then the farmer stands there and just looks a while, then drags the sheep a little more. I mean this is not good film work at all. It's boring plain and simple. A lot of the movie is like this. And you will see the o so genius critics rave about it (while they give movies like The Shining, Fight Club, and Sucker Punch horrible reviews). So understand critics are very susceptible to group think while they also like to pretend they see something you don't (when many times they miss the obvious while thinking they're so awesome). So the movie is slow, poorly made, and horribly edited. But what makes it not matter is the scenery and the fact that you're watching an actual sheep drive.

If you enjoy cruelty to animals....

[bmacstudio · 9 August 2010]

and call it beautiful, then I can see enjoying this film. Yes, it is well done....The camera work is really wonderful. What I'm not seeing is how this is anything but what it should be, an anti wool clothing piece. Good god, they abuse the sheep with shears and send them stripped into the snowy winter. Not a single scene where these guys treat any of these animals with respect.

Sorry, I'm actually watching it right now, and I understand there is ignorance at play, but these are horrible human beings.

Enjoy the "Magnificent... Wonderful... Astonishingly beautiful..." "Nature overwhelms the screen and even minds."

Really?

I do not recommend this documentary.

[nathaniells · 2/10 · 25 January 2011]

I grew up not far from Big Timber, Montana and the wilderness area where the film was shot is my favorite place on earth. I also love documentaries. With that said, I was surprised I did not like this film at all. I gave it two stars because of the scenery. I am in the minority opinion with regards to the "pure art" of this film. I found it extremely dry and boring. With the exception of the excellent scenery and good camera work, the rest of the film truly stinks. I really can't say enough bad things about it. I wish I didn't have to continue writing more details about how bad the film was, but IMDb has a ten line minimum.