Tag Archives: Andrea Arnold

New In Theaters

Of a Feather

Leave a comment

Bird

by Hope Madden

There is nothing quite like an Andrea Arnold film. The writer/director sees through the eyes of cast aside adolescent girls like few other filmmakers, and her own eye for color and detail behind the camera creates transcendent cinematic experiences.

Her latest effort, Bird, represents something closer to magical realism than anything she’s done previously (American Honey, Fish Tank), but her generous nature with characters and her impeccable casting are present, as always.

Bailey (newcomer and treasure Nykiya Adams) is a 12-year-old bored and frustrated with life. She lives with her father, Bug (Barry Keoghan, magnificent as ever), who intends to start making real money with the “drug toad” he’s just brought home. (An actual toad. It “slimes” a hallucinogenic when it hears earnest music.) Across town, her mother’s abusive boyfriend is a threat to Bailey’s three younger half siblings.

Somewhere between the two, Bailey meets Bird (Franz Rogowski). Bird is unusual. At first, she quietly follows him out of curiosity, then a kind of protectiveness, and finally friendship.

Rogowski’s enigmatic performance never patronizes, never bends to the noble outsider cliché.

Keoghan—easily among the most fascinating actors working—exudes a childlike charm that makes Bug irresistible.

Bailey’s life with her father—though hardly a safe or comfortable environment—takes on qualities of a fairy tale, or at least the absence of an adult world. In many ways, Bird tells of his coming-of-age even as it follows his daughter’s.

What makes the third act such a standout—whether you can get behind its surreal quality or you cannot—is the unerring authenticity of the first two acts. And what makes that authenticity so magical in itself is the way Arnold and her cast mine it for beauty.

Arnold is forgiving, though never naïve. There’s plenty of ugliness as well, but spray painted eyes and matching purple jumpsuits have rarely seemed so beautiful.

New In Theaters

Poor Cow

Leave a comment

Cow

by Matt Weiner

There’s nothing in the rulebook that says a cow can’t be nominated for Best Actress, right? Because Luma, the bovine star of Andrea Arnold’s mesmerizing new documentary, deserves to be the most improbable frontrunner of awards season.

The filming for Cow took place over about four years at a British dairy farm. There is no voiceover, no reassuring David Attenborough nature narration… Just an unsparing look at Luma and the daily existence for cattle on a modern farm.

For Luma, that means a life built around providing milk through high-tech milkers. In one of the film’s more arresting images, Arnold shows Luma entering what the industry whimsically calls a milk carousel—but takes on the foreboding look of a milk panopticon each time Luma trudges into place.

Arnold and her director of photography Magda Kowalczyk capture everything through Luma and the cattle. When farm workers appear, their presence is in the background, guiding the animals or performing routine examinations but never the focus of the action.

It’s a powerful effect that lays bare our relationship to modern farming without being proscriptive. Cow shows just how much these animals do for us—Luma cannot even nurse her calves. Instead, it’s right back to the milk carousel so no sellable product goes to waste.

And this truly seems like one of the more favorable options for modern farms. The cows get some seasonal pasture time, although the sense of calm it provides them makes the limited time outside the pen all the more depressing.

Luma may not have a voice, but Arnold’s masterful direction makes her as complex and compelling as any Arnold protagonist. Luma deals with birth, sex, sadness, grief. Arnold makes the case that we are connected to these animals. These animals may not have any agency beyond capitalist utility in life, but Cow demands that we at least take the time to reflect on this relationship and what we might owe the things in life that give us so much.