Cow Trailer Andrea Arnold S Documentary Debut

First screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Arnold’s fifth feature focuses on a dairy cow named Luma residing on an English cattle farm. As Arnold’s camera follows Luma through birthing, milking, mating, and all the circumstances that make up the life cycle of this working animal, we see both the beauty and the hardships of her life. Centered on Luma’s point of view and rarely including any kind of dialogue, Arnold lets her striking images speak for themselves. It’s a visceral, profound, and mostly silent cinematic journey that asks us to acknowledge this particular bovine subject’s great services to the planet and to contemplate our own relationship to the natural world.

From IndieWire’s review out of the Cannes Film Festival: Watch the trailer exclusively below. Arnold apparently spent years filming Luma’s life, as she grew from calf to dairy cow, mated with bulls, and roamed with her herd. Cinematographer Mada Kowalczyk’s camera gets close to the action at every chapter, even bumping into its subject more than once, as her serene and sometimes even somber gaze fills the frame. Every plaintive “moo” hints at some measure of emotion lurking just beneath our full comprehension.