In addition to her other film projects, celebrated British director AndreaArnold spent four years working on her first documentary cow. The film tookso much time because it follows a dairy cow from birth to death. Arnold isknown for penetrating feature films such as Fish Tank (2009) and AmericanHoney (2016). The switch to documentary is not as big as it might seem atfirst glance. Arnold always works in and with reality in her feature films –as a result, her work is remarkably raw, authentic and devoid of overlyostentatious moralism.
In front of cow she settled regularly on a fairly average farm in Kent. Shefollows her cow Luma first as a calf, then shows how she is being prepared formilk production, how Luma brings her own calves into the world and how hereconomic value gradually decreases as she can give less milk. Arnold does notemphatically seek compassion for the animal in the viewer. There is nocommentary – the viewer has to answer the question whether or not this is anethical way of dealing with an animal.
It turns out to be remarkably easy to stay captivated for a long time by thenon-human protagonist of cow. “I have noticed from the reactions that peoplemainly project a lot of themselves on the film,” says Arnold in Novemberduring a visit to the Amsterdam documentary festival IDFA. “The film evokes insome people associations with difficult periods in their own lives:associations with being locked up in a prison, or painful events in their ownrelationship with their mother.
“I thought I had made a gentle film, but the reactions sometimes turn out tobe quite intense. I thought I had made a film about a cow, but from thereactions I conclude that there may be other themes that come up as well. Thatin itself is not so strange. If you work intensively on a film, subjects andthemes will inevitably end up in it that are of great importance to youpersonally. It doesn’t have to be conscious at all. Never before have I beenable to bring about such an open dialogue with the audience with a film.”
What were the most striking reactions for you?
“I don’t want to go into too much detail about that. I absolutely can’t standit when someone starts explaining their own work extensively to the public.That can only hurt the conversation about the film. I think it’s good ifviewers give their own meaning to the film.”
That freedom for the viewer is also in your films themselves. You always leavea lot of room for interpretation.
“That’s a movie, isn’t it? The world is very polarized right now. That may bethe effect of social media. We only take information in small chunks onTwitter and Instagram. This may mean that we are less and less curious in ourthinking. With my films I try to arouse the curiosity of the viewer, much morethan imposing a certain vision on the viewer.”
You’re very involved with the social themes in your movies, but you don’t makeactivist movies.
“Some people see my films that way. People are never just good or evil. Theycan do something absolutely evil and do a good deed on the same day. We arevery imperfect beings.
“There are so many other colors between black and white. Polarization doesn’tget us much further. People’s behavior often has everything to do with theworld they come from. Some people can’t behave at all differently than theydo. Should we just write off such people?”
You are not expressing an explicit judgment even about our currentrelationship with animals.
“So I don’t want to say too much about that. But this: the film was made fromthe idea that we as humans have lost contact with nature. I’ve had thatfeeling for a long time. I myself grew up in a large housing complex withsocial housing on the outskirts of London. My mother was sixteen when I wasborn and my father eighteen. My father was never there, maybe my mother wasjust too young to raise children. As a result, I had a very free childhood,without too much supervision.
“Our residential complex was close to nature. As a child I was always outsideplaying. When things exploded again at home, I went outside to relax innature. After that I could handle the umpteenth drama at home better. I havealways maintained that connection with nature. That’s why there are so manyscenes with animals in all my movies. For me, that’s a very natural way ofexpressing myself. If I have a scene with a character who is furious, Iimmediately put one in. That happens almost unnoticed.
Read the review of ‘Cow’
“As humans, we are part of nature. We are animals. Smart animals maybe, butanimals. The film is my humble attempt to let that realization sink in. Nowlook at an animal, a cow, as a conscious living creature, with which we ashumans are connected. Don’t look away, because that’s what people do all toooften. We often don’t want to know where the food in our stores comes from.”
Three famous movie farm animals
Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
The cloister of a pack donkey won the Venice Jury Prize; remake EO by JerzySkolimowski won the jury prize in Cannes this year. At Bresson, the donkey isa saint: humble and subservient. After a carefree childhood, Balthazar fallsinto the hands of exploiters, clowns and a spiteful bastard. A tearjerker withreligious undertones.
The Turin Horse Bela Tarr, 2011
The title refers to the mercilessly beaten horse that sent philosopherNietzsche into a psychosis from which he never recovered. With this portraitof a farmer, his daughter and his horse on a very bleak puszta, ultra-pessimist Béla Tarr emphasizes that man is even worse off in terms of miserythan his beast of burden, which accepts his fate without question.
gunda Viktor Kossakovski, 2020
An ode to the piglet on his grandparents’ kolkhoz with whom Kossakovski becamefriends as a child; after his unexpected slaughter he became a vegetarian. Hegives the sow Gunda and her piglets a movie star treatment, he filmed onseveral farms and in a studio. It’s a piggy’s dream filmed at snout level,until humans make their routinely cruel entrance.