Monday, August 30, 2010

Sweetgrass the Movie


Sweetgrass is a documentary without narration. The sounds from the natural surroundings and the occasional voices of men and women make up the soundtrack for this film. Amazingly, I was hook-in to this story by just the visual footage. The pace is beautifully slow. If you are watching it with young kids, be aware that about 3/4 the way through the film you will hear a string of obscenities lasting several minutes that would be beyond a "R" rating. Personally I think using the tortured sounding cuss-fest of the herder is brilliant, patched into this quiet film. Furthermore, it's shot in Montana so there's a special sentimentality for me.

While watching this film, I kept thinking that people need to see where their wool comes from. For those who are appalled by the harsh treatment of these animals, just know that this kind of ranching is considered more humane than what's happening in Australia.

I found Sweetgrass on Netflix and it's a "watch instantly" movie.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the review! i saw it on netflix too, but didn't get around to watching it yet.