The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Cannes Film Festival 2021

Cow

Cannes Film Festival 2021: Cow | Review
10 July 2021
Emma Kiely
Avatar
Emma Kiely
10 July 2021

Movie and show review

Emma Kiely

Cow

★★★★★

Special event

“Has she really gotten this bad?” a farm worker asks another, to which he replies “what do you mean?”; she clarifies: “as in overprotective”. They discuss the animosity of Luma, one of the many cows on their farm who is protecting her newborn calf. This is number six for her and, with the passing of time, she has become more guarded of her young. Andrea Arnold – whose American Honey won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2016 – makes a documentary that follows the cyclical life of Luma, a British dairy cow.

The film is 90 minutes of video footage of the animals in their not-so-natural habitat. One of the first scenes is a close-up of the birthing of a calf, being pulled with great effort by rope tied around its hooves, wrangled before even fully earth-side. The milking process is also shown with a contraption that has four suction nozzles, sucking furiously on the mammal’s teats. The sound of a whale crying for its young sent shivers down audiences’ spines in Blackfish, and Cow is no different. Luma’s calls say “where are you” and “why are they doing this?” as her calf is taken and she is prepared for milking.

Arnold has cemented herself as a key figure in independent cinema, with her coming-of-age drama Fish Tank, set in London flats, and her adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The director excels in capturing what goes unspoken between humans and that excellence can be extended to animals. It’s not an easy feat to make cattle the star of a film when they’re not animated or voiced by a bankable celebrity. However, viewers still get a sense of how the cow is feeling: scared, anxious and angry, and that’s all down to Arnold’s choices. Some scenes feel as though the cameras have been put down leaving Luma in charge of directing: all the bashes and off-angle shots are included, putting the audience right in the pen with the animals.

Todd Hayne’s The Velvet Underground pushed documentary boundaries but Arnold abandoned them altogether. If you told any director to make a film with no interviews, a soundtrack that can only be heard through the speakers in a farm stable and an ordinary cow as a subejct, they would walk out the room. This is why she should be seen as one of the most interesting filmmakers of her time, dismantling rules of cinema, finding new ways to tell stories and leaving audiences in the dark when the film is over, needing to inhale and exhale repeatedly to come back to reality.

Cow is a documentary like no other and a celebrated return to Cannes for Arnold.

★★★★★

Emma Kiely

Cow does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2021 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.

Watch a clip from Cow here:

Related Itemscannes film festivalfilm festivalreview

More in Cannes

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

“I think I’m kind of a drug addict for image and sound coming together! I’m always putting images to sound and getting high”: An interview with Hlynur Pálmason, director of Godland

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Leyla’s Brothers: An interview with Saeed Roustayi

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Plan 75: An interview with director Chie Hayakawa

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Falcon Lake: An interview with director Charlotte Le Bon

Selina Sondermann
Read More

“How to make a genuine portrait of life”: An interview with the stars of Leila’s Brothers

Selina Sondermann
Read More

“It’s never as I planned it to be, but that’s the point. I like that”: An interview with Marie Kreutzer, director of Corsage

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer Fait Tousser)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

The Woodcutter Story (Metsurin Tarina)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Emma Kiely

Cow

★★★★★

Special event

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Paolo Nutini – Last Night in the Bittersweet
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Beauty and the Beast: The Musical at London Palladium
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Brian and Charles
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Railway Children Return
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Viagra Boys – Cave World
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Black Bird
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • The End of the Night at Original Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Throne at Charing Cross Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • “We really wanted to create a cabbage gun”: An interview with David Earl and Chris Hayward stars of Brian and Charles
    Cinema & Tv
  • Flamenco Festival 2022 at Sadler’s Wells
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Black Bird
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • Paolo Nutini – Last Night in the Bittersweet
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Viagra Boys – Cave World
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • The Railway Children Return
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Adele lights up Hyde Park for BST Festival
    ★★★★★
    Live music
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Cannes Film Festival 2021: Bloody Oranges | Review
Cannes Film Festival 2021: Unclenching the Fists (Razzhimaya Kulaki) | Review