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Sweetgrass
Documentary Filmmakers: Llish Castaing-Taylor and Lucien Castaing-Taylor Appearances by: Lawrence Allested, ranch hands John and Pat Cinematography: Lucien Castaing-Taylor Harvary Sensory Ethnography Lab/Cinema Guild Rating: no rating but could be a strong PG 13 or R for language Running Length: 102 minutes For over one hundred years, the Raisland-Allestad Ranch in Montana has been a sheep herding ranch, doing so on public lands. This has been the Old West tradition, though contemporary environmentalists have objected to overgrazing and the shooting of predators (bears, wolves or cougars) that are fewer and fewer each year. The first thing you hear is the sound of the wind. Then, the film follows two ranch hands, John and Pat, who are taking a herd of several hundred sheep to higher elevations for the summer and bringing them back in the fall for shearing and sale. The scenery in Sweetgrass County, Montana is simply breath-taking and to think the men have this all to themselves for months at a time. We watch the sheep birthing process in the barns and the choice of who lives and who doesn't. When a lamb is rejected by one ewe, perhaps, another will adopt it, and so life goes on. The sheep in the ranch pasture are feed by a huge machine with an enormous roll of grass behind it. Every few yards, more grass is dropped until the herd is circled with food. Great idea. The dogs help a great deal in herding the sheep, although there are times when even the dogs have a bad day. Once, one of the men had a bad knee, the dog won't obey and his horse is sick, so in the middle of mountains, he calls his mother by cel phone to complain and ask for comfort. Some things never change. Occasionally, at night, the dogs bark, and in the film, guns are fired for effect as the sound echoes through the mountains and will frighten predators away. Be aware, though, of language in this film. When frustrated, the men give the word "profanity" new meaning. The sounds you hear in the film are natural sounds of the sheep, dogs barking, or the horses. You see this enormous herd of sheep being drive up to pasture, and in the fall, going through the town and back to the ranch. A job some in the audience with nine-to-five occupations will find both enchanting and hard to realize, plus no coffee cafes nearby. When the documentary, Sweetgrass was made several years ago, no one knew it would be the last sheep drive recorded or the end of the Raisland-Allestad Ranch. The film is being released this year and it is not only a look at the raising of sheep for one year, but for a look at this particular past, which will never be again. Copyright 2010 Marie Asner 
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