One of the canonical greats of the si­lent era, by the duo Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack – today mostly remembered for their iconic sound-era masterpiece King Kong (1933) – is a documentary on the heroic annual mi­gration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribes of Iran.

For the first third of the film, as the filmmakers and their fellow traveller, journalist Marguerite Harrison, traverse Turkey and present-day Iraq, a great sense of anticipation is built. They search for the nomads, or the “Forgotten Peo­ple” (who were by no means forgotten, as their way of life was a source of constant political tension with the Iranian gov­ernment). Once discovered in the prai­ries of southwest Iran, the filmmakers join them just in time for their spring migration through inhumanly ardu­ous routes, including crossing the wild Karun River on inflated goatskins and climbing the 4,200-metre tall Zard-Kuh with bare hands – sometimes even barefoot. The scenery is breathtaking, and Haidar Khan, the tanned and la­conic chief of the tribe, has a movie-star quality as he leads 50,000 people and half a million livestock across impossibly snowy and stony terrain.

At the end of the journey, he signs a letter confirming that the trio spent the entire 46-day journey with the tribe. The letter was co-signed by American Vice Consul Robert W. Imbrie, who, as men­tioned in the intertitles, was murdered in Tehran shortly afterwards by a mob. This turbulent period would soon see the end of the Qajar dynasty in Iran, and before long, Reza Khan would declare himself the first Pahlavi king. Possibly because the murder was blamed on him, Grass was never shown in Iran during his reign, and it wasn’t until 1976 – during the Shiraz Arts Festival – that it was successfully revived, with its reputa­tion having grown over time.

Grass offers a romanticised view of a great people. Yet, there is no doubt that the film was made in complete awe and empathy for their way of life and their resilience. It is an epic film about people who live epic lives. The restless filmmak­ers identify with the people they follow, transforming their journey into some of the grandest vistas of silent cinema ever captured on film.

Ehsan Khoshbakht