Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, 1925.
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Edition screened: Milestone DVD, released 2000. English intertitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 71 minutes.
Summary: Animals are forced to their deaths.
Ah, yes, The Triumph of the Human Spirit … my least favorite theme that contains neither the phrase ‘coming of age story’ nor ‘When a streetwise young [whomever] meets …’. In Grass the human spirit triumphs - as usual - at the great expense of animals who had no choice in the matter.
This documentary film observes a real nomadic Persian tribe that periodically must cross a frozen mountain range and a turbulent river in their search for pasture land. This river is particularly wide, fast, and full of rocks and white water. The tribe has goats, sheep, donkeys, dogs, chickens, probably cows, etc., that are loaded onto rickety rafts that may or may not even float, or sometimes tied onto rickety rafts that may or may not even float, or simply driven into the rapids and told to head for the opposite side. And the noble tribesmen persevere as the dogs drown. The young and old, strong and weak, shuffle feartoothlessly onward as the sheep are dragged down and never seen again. And the young chieflet who will lead this journey next year learns much of the Divine Spirit that is within us all as the baby goats are dashed against the rocks. His father makes him repeat the lesson learned today: This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball. Straight ahead and rest assured you can’t be sure at all.
Merian C. Cooper was a genuine explorer and adventurer, as well as an important early director and innovator in cinema. Cooper and Schoedsack cut their teeth on this documentary and admitted some real reservations about various aspects of the project. Hinting at the sly dexterity to come in their later films, a few scenes in Grass fail to disguise the less-than-worthless nature of the financier who insisted on accompanying the film crew and nomads.