By showing the lives of cows on their own terms, Arnold’s 2021 film reveals the depth of the dairy industry’s violence.

Andrea Arnold’s 2021 film Cow is, ostensibly, a documentary about a dairy cow. But it offers an experience unlike any other documentary I have watched. Shot over four years on a dairy farm in Kent, England, its portrayal of a cow’s life eschews the reassuring framework of the human perspective. There is no narration, no talking heads, no facts and figures guiding us—yet it doesn’t feel like it’s just a typical animal documentary that has had those elements subtracted. It feels like a fictional film starring animal actors. It feels like a cinema verité documentary that a cow would make for other cows. The few humans who appear onscreen are insignificant, transient, and above all distant. The cow is our constant. “It’s not really a documentary. I don’t think it is. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a documentary,” Arnold said in an interview with the Playlist, before admitting, “I don’t know why it’s not… What is a documentary, maybe?”

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-you-need-to-watch-andrea-arnolds-cow

🐄 The #cow is a #person!