Kick-Back Friday: #152

Sweetgrass (2010): Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor record the last American to herd his sheep into the federally protected Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness of Montana, circa 2001. Unlike what we've come to expect from contemporary documentaries (or fabulist tales passing as documentaries—we're looking at you Michael Moore), it's an adventure filmed as objectively and as minimalistically (and consequently, as beautifully) as possible. 

The filmmakers actually seem to make a point of not insinuating themselves into the story. There are no off-camera exchanges with human subjects or even explanatory voiceovers. Just the incessant bleating of sheep and howling of wind interrupted by snoring, cussing, whining, crying, and..the occasional crack of gunfire.