Nose for News - the Way of Life of a Reporter by Elliott Arnold

Not that the cows are deliberately treated badly by the farmers, many of whom are women themselves, and all of whom seem to be concerned for their livestock’s well-being. The fact that many of the songs are by women underscores how what we are witnessing is really a mass case of female suffering. And despite the catchy pop tunes blasted on speakers inside the giant milking room, with hits by Billie Eilish and, for a Christmas special, The Pogues, this is not a happy place to be. While the baby is nursed with a bottle, Luma goes back to her day job, which is to have her udders pumped, along with dozens and dozens of other cows, by an industrial-sized rotating contraption that looks like the most boring ride at Bovine Disney. Right away, the cruelty of her existence becomes apparent when mother and child are separated, Luma crying out in desperation as her calf is carted off to another part of the farm, after which the two are rarely seen together. The subject in question is a massive female dairy cow named Luma, who, when we first meet her, is giving birth to a calf with the help of a few caring and hardworking farmers.

Working closely with Polish cinematographer Magda Kowalczyk, whose impressively acrobatic camerawork gets down and dirty to the point that the lens sometimes takes a few direct hits, Arnold plunges us straight into her subject’s point-of-view and never leaves it until the bitter end, during a final scene that’s shocking in its bluntness. Writers Strike Dampens Dealmaking in Rainy CannesĬoming in the wake of Viktor Kosakovskiy’s well-received pig chronicle Gunda, which was distributed by Neon last year, and the excellent 2011 French doc Bovines by Emmanuel Gras, Arnold’s movie is another worthy attempt to depict the life of farm animals from the inside - to showcase the behavior of creatures we tend ignore as we pass them by on the highway, or else that we simply choose to ignore because it’s easier that way.

Nose for News - the Way of Life of a Reporter by Elliott Arnold