REVIEW | Cow: Luma, the star unmourned, and how they got it so wrong
We don’t review many films here at Surge, but on watching Cow - which had the potential to be one of the most important portraits of a farmed animal ever to be made - we’re left with the feeling that justice wasn’t done to its star, Luma the mother cow. Spoiler alerts are not necessary, writes Andrew Gough.
To the uninitiated film critic and audience member, unfamiliar with the inner workings of the dairy industry, at first glance Cow - released in January in cinemas and Mubi - seems to be an in-depthportrait of a dairy mother, Luma, and her calves. Indeed, with a 90 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, many of the reviews go as far as to call it ‘honest’ and ‘brave’. We would argue, however, that it is anything but. Bear with us.
“[Director Andrea] Arnold finds humorous juxtapositions along the way... But for the most part, the film remains honest and earthy, occasionally turning harrowing or downright horrific,” said critic Rich Cline, writing for Shadows on the Wall. Other critics used such rhetoric as “absolutely haunting” and “as powerful to watch as it is painful”, while the Observer’s Wendy Ide claimed to have “cried more or less solidly through the last 30 minutes”.
To give credit where it’s due, Cow is like nothing we’ve seen before, although, with its high art and attempt to connect the audience with farmed animals by manipulating our perspective, obvious parallels can be drawn with works such as Gunda. Objectively, the cinematography is indeed unflinching and visceral; the soundscape sensory and immersive with only hints of human voices as if overheard by Luma. From the tight shots of a calf being born, glistening with amniotic fluids, to the wide-angle vistas of nighttime pastures beneath starry skies, there is much to applaud in what director Andrea Arnold set out to accomplish, visually and narratively, with her first documentary.
But considering that Arnold is renowned for her uncompromising storytelling, such as with Wasp for which she won an Oscar in 2005, Cow is actually quite dishonest in a sense. Granted, the story is only of Luma’s, so what we are meant to see, hear and feel is only that which she herself experiences. To this end, it is a great accomplishment, although there is one very glaring omission from Luma’s personal story that makes me feel it was intentional: male calves.
Over the course of the documentary, we see Luma give birth twice, and both times they are female calves. Assuming Arnold followed only Luma over those two years, the sex of the second calf would have been out of their control. But it’s entirely possible that Luma was chosen because she was pregnant with a female calf, which would have made an important part of the storytelling possible - the following of Luma’s first calf as she grew and was moved to another farm, destined to join a milking herd and await the same fate as her mother. We did need to see this, absolutely, the way the first calf’s fate is foreshadowed by what happens to Luma at the end is as inspired as it is harrowing, but what happens to male calves is never revealed.
Again, Luma could have given birth to a male calf the second time, but considering we don’t see much of what happens to the second female calf, a male calf’s fate could have been glossed over. It may also be possible that Arnold followed more mother cows than just Luma, selecting the best - or perhaps easiest - story to tell.
If the intention really was to tell Luma’s story, and by extension that of all mother dairy cows, male calves should have been part of this film. Luma was already nearing the end of her life, meaning that she would have had at least three or four calves before the events depicted in Cow, and there’s a good chance some of them would have been male. Where was the justice for them? The males, who were either killed soon after birth, raised for veal or sold off to slaughterhouses?
Never miss an article
Stay up-to-date with the weekly Surge newsletter to never miss an article, media production or investigation. We respect your privacy.
There is still a lot to admire about the film, and it is worth watching with non-vegan friends and family. Lingering scenes where Luma stares into the camera, calling out, help viewers to connect with Luma as an individual. Shots where her calf suckles at rubber teats or workers’ fingers, desperate for connection with her lost mother, are profoundly heartbreaking. The calf separation, Luma’s calls and obvious depression, and horrific practices like horn debudding with hot irons, are all shown in detail. The lack of narration during these times had me a little worried that audiences wouldn’t know what was happening, that as a documentary it was failing to inform, but in an abstract sense and to acknowledge the art of Cow, explanations weren’t necessary. It was enough to simply feel that these things were wrong.
That said, there were again some major issues with the portrayal of dairy farming that we’re left with. Those reviews mentioned previously said it was shocking, but it’s not even the half of it. If they knew what happens at most other dairy farms, while what happens to Luma is very sad and shouldn’t be minimised, it pales in comparison. The farm they chose, Park Farm in Kent (named in the credits), was as high welfare as they could possibly find. The workers are on their best behaviour, even likeable and relatable in their humanity and compassion for most of the film, and the farm’s grassy surroundings almost idyllic. Farms like that exist, but they are far from representative of the majority, and again, we don’t see male calves.
Forced artificial insemination, which is widespread in the UK dairy industry, is also conspicuous by its absence. We do see veterinary inspections where arms are inserted into Luma’s anus, to check her for pregnancy, but the act of conception is done with an actual bull. This seems incredibly rare, with most dairy mothers in the UK never seeing a bull their entire lives, only a person’s arm and the straw of an AI gun filled with bull semen. Even the ‘love scene’ between Luma and her male companion for the night is treated strangely by Arnold - sexually charged music (Kali Uchis and Jorja Smith’s “Tyrant”) just happening to be playing over the cowshed radio, fireworks going off over the field outside. The post-coital tenderness portrayed at the end, with Luna resting her head on the bull’s back, seems the only genuine thing about it, but even this verges on anthropomorphism. We’re supposed to feel that this is a relief after Luma’s sexual frustration, depicted in scenes where she mounts other females before the bull is introduced.
On the subject of anthropomorphism, Andrea does well to avoid most of the pitfalls and shortcuts of likening the non-human to the human experience. There is no soundtrack to influence and project our emotion onto Luma, except for the ‘coincidental’ music playing over the shed radio. At most times it’s fine and a little quirk of storytelling that we can forgive, but during the bull love scene, it’s comedic relief at best, and insultingly tacky at worst.
In an interview with streaming service Mubi, Arnold admits to being “cheeky” in this very scene: “The fireworks were there. And I think I'm being very cheeky in that scene, actually. And I allowed myself to be cheeky, because I am cheeky. And I don't shy away from being cheeky.” Pretty disappointing, given that we’re talking about Luma’s life and that of millions of her sisters across the world. Would Arnold have allowed herself such cheekiness with human subjects?
Certainly, Cow is an incredible achievement in its own right, but in doing justice to Luma, it falls very short, criminally so. The saving grace, however, is Arnold’s treatment of the coup de grace, expertly foreshadowed yet still brutal and shocking. But considering Luma is actually credited as a cast member on the Mubi website, and that Arnold was supposedly striving to show her sentience and individuality, perhaps the greatest travesty of all is that she went so unmourned.
Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.
Your support makes a huge difference to us. Supporting Surge with a monthly or one-off donation enables us to continue our work to end all animal oppression.
LATEST ARTICLES
