{"id":4149,"date":"2016-10-28T19:20:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T23:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2026-08-18T14:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:37:19","slug":"sweetgrass-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=4149","title":{"rendered":"Sweetgrass-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweetgrass-2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ilisa Barbash\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #502<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"70128353\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed October 28, 2016<\/p>\n

Grade: F<\/strong><\/p>\n

While generally, I am an advocate and champion of film documentaries, I always love to learn something new; Sweetgrass (2010) had a strange effect on me- simply put, I despised the film.<\/p>\n

Even if the subject matter doesn’t particularly interest me, it usually garners at least some recognition and praise for what it is.<\/p>\n

Sweetgrass is a documentary about a group of sheepherders from Montana transporting their herd to another location.<\/p>\n

It was unclear to me why the sheep were being transported or where they were going, but I assume it was nearby.<\/p>\n

The documentary has no narrative and little dialogue, except for one sheepherder ranting and raving about how tough it is to be a sheepherder, all the while smoking incessantly.<\/p>\n

Most of the time is spent watching sheep and sheep and sheep and sheep- and still more sheep wandering about and drifting down a mountain range.<\/p>\n

Then we see still more sheep moving about.<\/p>\n

As my mind began to wander, I began to wonder if the sheep were a metaphor of some kind. Then they threw in some dogs and horses for good measure.<\/p>\n

The location scenes are nothing special, and after a brief five minutes of appreciation of the gorgeous landscape, I was over it.<\/p>\n

At one hour and forty-five minutes in length- way too long for a documentary that moves along at a snail’s pace- it is about an hour too long for my tastes.<\/p>\n

After pondering the film, my only determination is that the filmmakers were hoping to give the viewers a real-life slice of what it is like to be a shepherd- snore!<\/p>\n

I would have rather experienced interviews and commentary with some merit on the subject.<\/p>\n

Worse than the redundant pacing, the constant mistreatment of some of the sheep is inexcusable and has no bearing on the topic at hand, which I confess to being unsure what the point of the documentary even was, other than as a cure for insomnia.<\/p>\n

Sweetgrass (2010) is a complete waste of time.<\/p>\n

Independent Spirit Award Nominations:\u00a0<\/strong>Best Documentary, Truer Than Fiction Award<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweetgrass-2010 Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ilisa Barbash\u00a0 Scott’s Review #502 Reviewed October 28, 2016 Grade: F While generally, I am an advocate and champion of film documentaries, I always love to learn something new; Sweetgrass (2010) had a strange effect on me- simply put, I despised the film. Even if the subject matter doesn’t particularly interest … Continue reading Sweetgrass-2010<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269,46],"tags":[3142,3141],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-movie-reviews","category-documentaries","tag-ilisa-barbash","tag-lucien-castaing-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24162,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/24162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}