You won't be disappointed!

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

good back-story, and good acting

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The filmmakers join the Bakhtyari in Angora, Turkey. The Haidar declares that the tribe must travel to find grass for the herd in Persia. Fifty thousand people and their animals struggle across the River Karun on goat skin floats and climb the Zardeh Kuh to find green pastures.This is yet another documentary of a lost way of live like Nanook of the North (1922). This is a slice of a world long gone but from an outsider western point of view. It doesn't really dig too deep into the culture and the Bakhtyari themselves don't have much of a voice in the film. The goat skin floats river crossing is just amazing and is something that I couldn't even imagine before this.

Thanks TCM for bringing this piece of history to a broader audience. And what a slice of the past it is. This is living next to the land, in spades. That thousand-mile trek through Arabia and the Caucuses is not just long, but harrowing, as well. It's men, women, kids, donkeys, cattle, goats, sheep, all winding their way through impossible terrain, with a few skinny dogs tagging along. Sure, it seems they do it every year to get to the mountain grassland, but I can't see it ever gets any easier. When I backpack in the snow, I've got good warm boots and heavy socks—these folks, however, do it in, uh, bare feet!!!-- for better traction, I guess. Anyway, I'm still shivering from that footage. Then there's the river crossing. That alone is worth the price of admission. You've got to admire their herding prowess in the rapids with nothing more than inflated goatskins. In fact, I have a whole new appreciation for the lowly sheep and the gutsy herders who tend them. As good as the footage is, questions do arise. What, for example, do they do with sick people. It seems they can't stop the trek, so I guess they just pack them along and hope for the best. Also, we don't see them eating along the way or building fires (if they do) or setting up tents. Instead, Cooper & Co. track the snaking caravans only, but then that's more than enough. However, someone should have given second thoughts to some of those ridiculous title cards. But all that is merely incidental to a filmed record of a people who reach far back in time, and ones I would be proud to have as forebears. Then again, I guess I won't be complaining about having to walk to the store, any time soon.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but although the film itself was a technical masterpiece for its time, I watched it piece-by-piece on TCM last night, the question arises to me: Why did they do that? putting their lives in jeopardy, many of them died on the trek, why would they undertake such a life-endangering journey, just to find food for their animals (!) once they reached the "land of milk and honey", why didn't they just stay there? Would you endanger your life, and that of your entire community, just to find food for a herd of cattle? As dangerous as it was, to do it for that purpose alone, shows the inbred simplicity of these types of people. Risk death for a cow?? Better them than I!

They probably could have skipped some of the beginning - I'm not sure why this starts out in the Asian part of Turkey. If it was because starting in the Mediterranean, they could have gotten closer starting in modern day Lebanon.One the cameras and crews get to the Bakhtyari tribe, it's the beginning of an amazing 48 day journey. 50,000 people with about 250,000 goats, camels, cattle, and horses make this amazing trek across what seems to be a very fast moving Karun River. They use rafts that are kept afloat by inflating goat skins - you can see where the head and legs were removed. The other "bank" of the river was very steep - I'm guessing about a 60 degree rise.Just watching that was incredible, but there was much more to come. To get to the pastures, they also had to cross a major mountain that had about 4 feet of snow, if not more. Being able to climb this mountain was pretty amazing in and of itself, but they (and all of the animals) climbed this mountain barefoot! Yes, barefoot.The one drawback to this documentary were some of the inter-titles with poor attempts at humor.If you want to see a documentary from the silent era, or the incredible challenges that this tribe not only face, but conquer. This is just an incredible document of a little known group of people facing all kinds of challenges.