One might not expect Andrea Arnold, the English filmmaker known for her intimately harrowing narrative features “Fish Tank” and “American Honey,” to next deliver a dialogue-free nonfiction film examining the life of a farm animal. But after an embattled experience on season two of the HBO series “Big Little Lies,” Arnold has turned away from Hollywood and back to nature, bringing her unflinching sensibility to bear on “Cow,” a carefully considered contemplation of the life of a dairy cow, Luma.
This verite-style observational documentary, which debuted at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, opens with a scene of Luma giving birth, a moment that swings from gory to tender and then heartbreaking, as Luma, tenderly licking the goo and slime from her baby, is ushered to the milking stall, afterbirth hanging from her hindquarters. When she returns to her newborn, she squares off with the camera, staring it, and us, down, bellowing for her babe. It’s a confrontation, and just one searing example of the way that Arnold, and cinematographer Magda Kowalczyk, configure the camera (always right at the cow’s shoulder, at eye level and sometimes head-on) as a connection to the emotional and lived experience of the cows, a participant-observer but also an intruder.
The life of a dairy cow in “Cow” is an endless parade of intrusions on what we might consider the natural order. Luma’s a working mother, only allowed a nuzzle or two with her baby before the babe is given a rubber udder attached to a pail and mom is back to be milked or mated with, incongruously set to the tunes of lo-fi contemporary pop ballads. Soon there will be another baby, ripped from her again. And on and on, and so it goes.
As emotionally devastating as it can be to take in “Cow,” as mama cows long for their babies, separated and sent to live with the other calves, this farm is one of the good ones. The cows are well-cared for and grass-fed, the farmers knowledgeable, kind and gentle. Arnold is not trying to shock or terrify any viewer (this is not a sensationalist PETA video), but she simply offers an invitation to bear witness to what the industrialization of food production means for animals. In our modern, industrialized lives, we’re divorced from our connection to food production, so the film challenges the viewer to consider our own role in the exploitation and discomfort of these animals via our consumption.
While it can be a challenging watch, “Cow” doesn’t necessarily have a specific agenda, and is not an indictment of the dairy industry. It offers up a clear-eyed observation of the process and allows the viewer to decide. The carnage and casual cruelty required to produce food like this is hard to take, but it’s also a reflection of life itself, which can always be rough and beautiful and bloody. What Arnold manages to make tangibly cinematic in “Cow” is the soulful spirituality of these animals, their beauty and their emotions. It is as moving as it is devastating, and while this film requires patience and fortitude, it rewards with a singular, and perspective-shifting, cinematic experience.
———
‘COW’
3 stars (out of 4)
No MPAA rating
Running time: 1:34
Where to watch: In theaters and on demand Friday
———
