http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered Fresh culture daily. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:20:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.5 http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/09/counting-sheep-sweetgrass-and-the-nyff/ http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/09/counting-sheep-sweetgrass-and-the-nyff/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:25:18 +0000 Annie and Lisa http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/?p=25634

I’ve been thinking about sheep. Ever since I saw the documentary SWEETGRASS over the weekend, I’ve been replaying the images in my mind. Newborn lambs thrown on top of each other, their bodies bouncing like rubber with no obvious damage done. A sheep chews cud and then pauses to give the camera a penetrating stare. A sheep herder’s frustrated and extended cussing diatribe at the herd he’s trying to control as the camera pulls back further and further to show the majestic expanse of wilderness that surrounds him. The sheep, their bodies flowing like water through the streets of a small town. SWEETGRASS (directed by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor) is a documentary about the last sheep drive up the Beartooth Mountains in Montana, a kind of elegy to the west and a meditation on existence dictated by nature and man’s limited control. A film so out of place and yet exactly the kind of unusual film you expect to see as part of the New York Film Festival.]]> http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/09/counting-sheep-sweetgrass-and-the-nyff/feed/ 0