The great nonverbal documentary film “Cow” by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold that premiered last year at Cannes is now finally available for streaming on Mubi.
The film is an intimate portrait of a milking cow and follows her in her everyday life on a farm in the UK. It’s style is naturalistic and contemplative with no obvious use of lighting or artificial film effects. The camera work is great and lets the viewer get really close to the cow, follow her around the farm and experience moments with her.
The film only manipulates mood at some points by the use of music and some editing to create some narrative scene or a moment at one point. The music is supposed to be coming from a radio that is playing in the background but the selected tracks e.g. by artists like Kali Uchis and some calmer songs seem to be too fitting atmospherically and it seems unlikely that they were playing on the radio coincidentally while filming the cow. These creative decisions didn’t add much to the film and seemed rather unnecessary and distracting in a minor way.
In general though I enjoyed the film and it fulfilled most aspects of realism and naturalism in its portrayal of the cow that I was hoping for. It let’s you observe calmly and is thought-provoking. Definitely recommended and a great experience.
Watch: Cow (2021) | MUBI
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