Grass: A Nation's Battle For Life | Marguerite Harrison, Haidar Khan

Grass: A Nation's Battle For Life | Marguerite Harrison, Haidar Khan | An astonishing film

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Grass: A Nation's ...

	Grass: A Nation's Battle For Life Marguerite Harrison, Haidar Khan Image Entertainment, 2000 average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A classic adventure by the makers of "King Kong." In 1924, neophyte filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack hooked up with journalist and sometime spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an adventure. They found excitement, danger and unparalleled drama in the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to take their herds to pasture. The filmmakers captured unforgettable images of courage and determination as the Bakhtiari braved the raging and icy waters of the half-mile-wide Karun River. Cooper and Schoedsack almost froze when they filmed the breathtaking, almost unbelievable, sight of an endless river of men, women and children--their feet bare or wrapped in rags--winding up the side of the sheer, snow-covered rock face of the 15,000-foot-high Zardeh Kuh mountain.

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And You Thought You Had a Hard Day?

You absolutely, positively MUST see this movie. Marion C. Cooper, director of the original (1930's) King Kong & two other Americans filmed this incredible exodus in 1927. With heavy, old camera equipment. In the winter. In the mountains of Iran. By foot and mule. And their subjects are utterly awe inspiring.

I first saw this silent, B&W documentary in 2005. I was right in the middle of packing for a huge, draining household move from the mountains of New Mexico to Texas. My husband was sick, I was utterly exhausted, and I was just 3 days out from the moving company's arrival. I sat down at midnight & caught this on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and was so inspired I promised to never complain about modern moving again (and I haven't)!

These Iranian tribesman undertake an annual pilgrimage across the most challenging terrain you would ever believe humans could traverse JUST TO GET THEIR ANIMALS TO GRASS. They walk barefoot through the snow. Herding cattle and sheep and horses. With cradles on their backs. And dogs tied to the tops of the animals. They cross freezing meltwaters on inflatable goatskins.

If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't believe it. Anyone with a sense of adventure has got to see this one!!!

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An astonishing film

This is one of the most important films ever made about tribal nomadic life, and the rigors of the filmmaking process make it all the more astonishing. The film does practice a bit of romanticism that was completely unnecessary. It pretends that the Bakhtiari tribe are making their migration as a one-time desperate bid for survival. In fact the Bakhtiari make this 250 km. journey twice every year, and they are still doing it, though they now do some of it by road. The film is inspiring, breath-taking and miraculous for the time it was shot. It belongs in the annals of the best film classics.

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A truly magnificant adventure

The fact that the subject of this amazing film took place during my lifetime is awesome. The human spirit and determination and courage are seldom displayed so dramatically.

You have to see it to believe it, as they say

Everyone I've shown this movie to was breathless with amazement, and this covers a 5 year old to a 90 year old (my son and father). Really two films, the first part shows the trek of the makers east across Turkey in 1925, with little vignettes to get to know the area. "Highway patrol" on camel-back. Hunting a wild goat with an ancient gun and incredible skill. A "camel-stop" not unlike a truck stop.

Then you meet the tribe, a mobile city of people and their animals, which they seem to live entirely off of. Cross raging rivers, take off your shoes when you get to the ice fields so as not to tear them, carry sick livestock on your shoulders. Simply more amazing than any acrobat, magician, athlete, or performer, you can barely believe your eyes.

More dramatic than Nanook of the North, but very similar. Both are worthwhile for every modern human to see.

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A breathtaking trek worth taking twice (on your couch)

I could have done without the first 20 or so minutes of this silent film documentary which presented the camera crew's journey from Constantinople to the mountain foothills in Iran. Those scenes felt heavily edited and seemed tame compared to what the Bakhtiari tribesmen were going to go thru in the balance of the movie.

The remaining 50 minutes or so flew by as I watched these nomads with their pack animals and herds cross an icy river, climb the precipitous slopes of a mountain, cross its snowy summit before descending into a warm valley of pasture lands for their herds. It was an incredible glimpse of a vanishing lifestyle. The only defect in my view was the use jokey title cards (eg, "Brrr", "Brrr" when crossing the chilly river) ruining my sense of involvement.

50 years later, in 1976, another documentary, this time in color, would once again follow these people in equally fascinating detail. That film was called People of the Wind. I recommend seeing both since each gives some details that the other doesn't.

(According to Wikipedia, as of 2006 a small percentage of Bakhtiari still made the journey -- but with transport for the herds and they didn't go barefoot in the snow.)

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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