Cow

Empathy and no-frills poetry: in her first documentary, Andrea Arnold follows the life of a dairy cow.

Music comes from somewhere, perhaps from a radio. The Pogues are singing "Fairytale of New York." The sound intermingles with the clatter of the metal gates, accompanied by the snorting of the cows. In the barn, they go about their daily lives like workers in a factory: eating and getting milked, being mated and calving – everything has a purpose here. People only appear on the periphery; they are part of the machinery. Filmmaker Andrea Arnold has observed one of the cows – Luma – over several years. The camera always stays close to the animal and literally at eye level. It’s there during Luma’s rare outing in a pasture, but also when she plaintively moos once her calf is taken away shortly after birth. Arnold has devoted time to knowing her personality and, free of the intention to lecture, generates empathy for what it means to be a dairy cow.

Director