Cow

The documentary "Cow" of Andrea Arnold shows every day's endeavors of a cow on a dairy farm. It brings us closer to the dark truth behind human exploitation of other species, where our desire of drinking milk makes millions of creatures suffer and live in fear.

This straightforward approach of showing us one specific cow and her way from giving a birth to death, allows us to empathize and understand what is hidden and invisible to a consumer of a milk product. It reminds us that we have no right to use other forms of life just to increase our own comfort. It manages to immerse us into a mind of a cow, living in fear and with no understanding of her own fate.

A method of no narration or dialogue is successful in providing us with tools that help us to distinguish emotions from cold thoughts. The documentary has a simple form, yet still, it manages to be rich in its effectiveness. It succeeds in being immersive, thought-provoking, moving and leaves us with questions that we need to answer ourselves.

I believe that the film's memo and the statement that it makes are on the same pathway of delivering similar messages related to discovering the incomprehensible human sense of superiority over everything else.

While the eponymous cow's way of thinking is less complex and abstract than the potential of the human brain, assuming it is therefore inferior due to that is a result of a rather shallow thinking. The document shows us that cows' greatest dreams and desires are not all that different from human ones. As equal to us, cows just want to be happy. Their way of being happy is to be close to others, surrounded by their family, and by grazing grass in beautiful clearings amidst nature and good weather. What prevents them from being happy in this way is a human system based on taking advantage of others and getting rid of them when they are no longer useful. As long as the destructive and harmful system continues, the suffering of the livestock will continue. However, not only theirs, because the system in which we operate ultimately hurts us, humans, as well.

Do you eat dairy? This film is for you.

I will never be the same after this film. I was already a fan of Arnold, but this film wrecked me. There is no gratuitous violence, just the truth. The empathy you feel for these intelligent beings in inescapable. This is a brave film. Watch it if you're brave.

Because you know how it's gonna end. At least environment is better than U. S. factor farms. But I only go for grass-fed free range milk and meat, if I eat meat at all. I do not care what kind of "mind" a cow has, this is no way to treat these beautiful animals. Here must be a better way. Humans must be kind to all creation.

An honest look at how cow farming works in the first world. No commentary, no agenda, as little interference as possible. Each viewer can watch with his own eyes and make up his own opinion about the topic. This documentary portrays a civilized farm, so take in consideration that in most of the farms around the world life for cows is much worse. Also consider that the farm owners/workers might have slightly changed their behavior knowing they were filmed. Having said that, it looked to me quite honest and genuine. I liked the absence of sentimentalism and the close portrait of farm cows. I'm a consumer of milk and cheese, but at the same time I love animals and cows. Is there something we can do that reconciles the two?

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Documentary filmmaker Andrea Arnold follows Luma, a cow around a dairy farm, through her daily cycle of grazing, milking, and cultivation, through to giving birth to her calf, with whom she becomes separated. The monotonous routine of her life is captured in grim detail, before she meets her inevitably grim end.

Dairy farming is a matter that has been raised a lot recently with regards the whole climate change movement, and this very intimate, personal film shines a light on the plight of a typical, average cow reared in such an environment, who inevitably meets with a grim conclusion.

Arnold has admittedly tried to aim for a very personal, close up film, which shines through in scenes at the beginning, with Luma staring directly into the camera with an almost pleading glare, but the complete lack of context ends up leaving the viewer alienated. To anyone not familiar with the agricultural process, some sort of overhead offering some kind of explanation as to what is taking place, or some statistics around dairy farming, would have put us in the picture and made it more involving.

With the lack of verbal input, Arnold uses an emotive soundtrack at various points to illicit our feelings. It all builds up to a grim, unoptimistic ending, not quite as gory as you may has envisaged, but still pretty stark and brutal, in the end pulled off with all the subtlety of a mafia hit. If only there'd been a little more context and clarity to it all, and his brutally tragic story could have had the true impact Arnold was aiming for. ***