Cow

A documentary. The subject is one animal. Luma is a cow on a dairy farm and the film follows her for four years. There is no narrator, almost no music, no expert opinion. The camera stays at the animal's level and records what it sees. What is seen is a cycle of production. Birth, the calf taken away at once, milking, insemination again, birth again. The days between pass in the shed; feed, hoof care, an ear tag, illness. There is one short section outside. The animals are let out in spring, and that scene is the only easy place in the film. What the narrative is interested in is not accusation but duration: it calls nobody wicked, the workers do their jobs and there is no cruelty. The effect comes entirely from repetition; the same procedure again and again. What the ending is will not be written here, but the film's most argued-over scene is there and the camera does not turn away. Andrea Arnold directed; she is known for her fiction and this is her first documentary. The filming took a long time and the crew was kept small. Who it is for: anyone who likes slow documentary and is ready to think about animal production. Who it is not for: a great many people; the film is repetitive to the point of dullness and its ending is hard to sit through.