Cow
Andrea Arnold’s first feature documentary tells the story of a cow called Luma.
Luma
Although Cow is unlike anything that Andrea Arnold has done before, it finds her on her best form. What's new about it is the fact that Cow is a documentary, but nevertheless I understand that it is a project that Arnold has long had in mind. Undoubtedly her heart is very much in it. However, the timing of the film’s arrival is unfortunate in that it invites a comparison with Viktor Kossakovskiy’s Gunda which was my choice as the best film released here in 2021. That film may have been about a pig rather than a cow, but these two works have a great deal in common since both reject any commentary and invite the audience to see life from an animal’s viewpoint. In prospect the parallels were such as to lead me to expect Cow to be totally overshadowed, but it isn't. If Gunda is, indeed, the greater achievement, that's because it fulfils a different and even more remarkable aim, but in its own right Cow is an undoubted success.
Arnold’s film is set on a dairy farm and the chief focus is on a cow named Luma who is seen calving at the outset. With huge close-ups a frequent feature, we are invited to consider closely the cow’s way of life which, however friendly the farm workers, reduces her existence to producing milk and bringing calves into the world. The farm procedures dominate in the first part of Cow and only in its middle passages do we see the animals enjoying the freedom of the fields (it feels almost like a lyrical andante in an otherwise harsh three-movement symphony).
In total contrast to Andy Heathcote’s splendid and poetic documentary The Moo Man (2013) which portrayed a Sussex dairy farm from the viewpoint of those devoted to running it, the humans here are mere background figures making only the briefest of passing remarks. Nor does Arnold follow Kossakovskiy’s example by introducing contrasting interludes with other animals. Consequently, the task of holding the audience is a severe one and her success owes much to the wondrously close images of Magda Kowalczyk and to the sheer brilliance of the way in which the film has been edited.
Gunda is, in fact, the more demanding film and feels it. Arnold unlike Kossakovskiy has opted for colour photography and, almost as though the workers are listening to pop music on Radio 1 (the station is referenced), the soundtrack incorporates snatches of songs. These elements give a certain ease to the film without reducing its power. Indeed, Cow emerges as a compelling experience, a persuasive account of how animals like Luma exist to be exploited. We see this through Arnold's eyes and that is her aim. Kossakovskiy's view of a pig’s life is not dissimilar. Nevertheless, what Gunda does is not only to show us what is done to the animal of that name but to make the viewer identify directly with the experience of what it is like to be a pig: it’s not just the case that you feel for such animals but that you feel with them. Emotionally Gunda is in a league of its own.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring The Dairy Cattle and the People of Park Farm.
Dir Andrea Arnold, Pro Kat Mansoor, Ph Magda Kowalczyk, Ed Rebecca Lloyd, Jacob Schulsinger anad Nicolas Chaudeurge.
BBC Films/Doc Society/Halcyon Pictures-Mubi.
94 mins. UK. 2021. UK. UK Rel: 14 January 2022. US Rel: 8 April 2022. Cert. 12A.
