From the moment the Berlinale programme was published, I wondered whether I was really the right person to write a review of this film. I still ask myself the same question. Since I couldn't bring myself to write a background article on this topic, I turn my review into a commentary and combine the two. It's a topic that has been close to my heart for years, that pushes me emotionally to the limit with every discussion and regularly makes me cry at the mere thought of it.
This does not change in Victor Kossakovsky's film Gunda. I'm also emotionally charged by the end of the Berlinale, but the tears would have flown either way. We meet the three most used animals of the western world with incredible calmness and empathy. It begins with Gunda, a recent pig mum. She lovingly cares for her piglets, who all tumble over each other and want to have a drink. We are in the barn, very close to the family and are there when the little ones see the light of day for the first time. In black and white it is easy to recognize the personalities of the piglets from the first day. They are all individuals and have their own desire and claim to life. For me it is difficult to listen to the "Aww "s going through the audience. This very morning most of the audience probably had six months old babies on their plates, which are now in the stomach of these people and no connection is made in their heads. It's just cute to watch the piglets. Now at the latest my first tears are flowing.
Quite a while later we watch how chickens from conventional farming see daylight for the first time in their lives. The door of their cage, in which the hens are crowded close together, is open, but it takes a long time before a hen dares to set foot in the grass for the first time. It's new and unusual, too much for the hens, who until now have only lived in their own filth, ripping each other's feathers out and giving everything for laying eggs. They are no longer useful to their former "owner" and would usually come to the butcher at this time. They are among the few lucky ones who have a second shot at life, the chance to really live, to be in the sun, to feel the grass under their feet. It is heartbreaking to see how dishevelled the chickens are, how many feathers they have left, how carefully they move and look around. For them it is like a dream, they do not really know what to do with the unknown environment. When they finally come across a fence again after hours of careful exploration, the lack of understanding is once again great. They try to get through it, but again find their freedom limited.
In the last third of the film, a barn door is opened and a herd of cows jumps out - literally jumps. They too have never seen daylight, they romp around in the grass and show us how they would behave if they were not locked up in their prisons for their whole lives. If they were not permanently attached to the milking machine, because they get pregnant by rape and have babies that are taken away from them right after birth to be turned into either meat or also dairy cows. After all, cow's milk is intended for human adults, isn't it?
The cows are portrayed in a wonderful and dignified way. We see close-ups that show the intelligence of the animals, the emotional understanding that we do not believe them to have. Very few people have ever really looked at cows. Sometimes you can see them in the pasture, in the mountains perhaps even up close. But in Gunda their personality is shown, their individuality, just like with the little piglets.
To give away the ending would not be a spoiler. We all know what happens to farm animals in the end. My concern was rather that this topic could be left out. The fact that a largely happy life of the animals, which they clearly do not have in 99.99% of all cases, would be portrayed and the audience would go home without reflection, would only be confirmed in the assumption that farm animals do well during their lives after all.
Although it makes me cry even more, I am relieved when the subject is taken up at the end. In keeping with the film's slow narrative style, the film also captures for a long time how Gunda, the main character of our film, desperately searches for her young and does not give up calling for them for a long time. They were only two months old.
At first I was irritated by the choice to shoot this film on a farm where the animals seem to be doing so well. As mentioned before, I thought that the viewers could therefore leave the cinema without reflection. However, Gunda touches the audience by this way of narration in a completely different way. There are already many films like Earthlings and Dominion that point out the abuses in animal farming. But many of the meat-eating population do not want to see such things. They close their eyes, see animals as objects, again and again the excuse is given that they only buy organic meat. Apart from the fact that even "organic animals" are not much better off than those from conventional farming, Gunda rather directs our attention to the question of why we decided to declare these species of animals as farm animals. Why we deny them the dignity of being, why so many people don't seem to care when they have a dead animal on their plate, even though we don't need meat to survive and it causes so many diseases, injustice in this world, water shortage and greenhouse gases. It is about the question why we kill other earthlings, although they are individuals like us, also have family structures, love each other, want to live.
Gunda is a very slow film without much plot. Observation is the keyword here. And it fits so well with the theme of looking away. Every day, billions of people close their eyes. Gunda makes them see at least 93 minutes of the lives of those who land on their plates every day.
Nothing is sugar-coated by music or unnecessarily dramatized. Nor is any human interaction shown. The attention is 100% on these animals, as it happens incredibly rarely.
In the 93 minutes it takes to watch Gunda, over 26 million animals are killed worldwide - not counting animal experiments, zoos, entertainment and animal fights. Annually, over 150 billion animals are killed for food consumption worldwide.
I would have liked to see such figures or other information included in the credits. Gunda can stand alone, but only for people who are already involved in the subject anyway. It is a beautiful and dignified portrait of animals that are otherwise deprived of any dignity in everyday life. The film shows us how these individuals would behave if they were free and we gave them the opportunity. It addresses the audience in a different way than the very graphic and brutal, but unfortunately real pictures of Earthlings, Dominion and Co. For me as a vegan it almost makes it worse. Depressing, heartbreaking, agonizing - no words can describe this feeling of being aware of what is happening every second to creatures who have never committed any other crime than being born.
Seventy-five years ago, Auschwitz was liberated and the systematic murder of the Jews finally came to an end. At this very moment pigs are being put into gas chambers, because this is the most "humane" method of killing pigs. At this moment mothers call for their calves and intuitively know that something terrible is happening to them. The value of selling their children is only about $15. Right now male chicks are being shredded because they made the mistake of being born as males and they are not "profitable". Their sisters hit the jackpot: to spend the rest of their short lives squatting in cramped conditions with other hens on bars or in their own feces, laying one egg after another until they dare to stop producing an egg every day and thus not being profitable anymore.
I cannot bring myself to calculate how many animals have had their throats slit since I started writing this article. How many cows, pigs, goats, sheep and other species have smelled the blood of their fellow animals with eyes widened in panic, who knew what it meant and fought for survival with all their strength. They do not know that from the moment of their birth it was prescribed how they would die.
Which of them have you eaten today?
Gunda is a film that everyone who eats meat should see. When you really get involved in the film, it's hard to watch. But if you belong to the meat eating fraction, you should either be able to watch it or ask yourself some important questions.
I thank Victor Kossakovsky for this distressing but necessary film. For the courage to shoot and show it, for the courage of the Berlinale to include it in the Encounters programme. And I thank you for having had the courage to read this whole article and to deal with the subject in this way. It is you who can give the animals a voice. And it starts on your plate.
This does not change in Victor Kossakovsky's film Gunda. I'm also emotionally charged by the end of the Berlinale, but the tears would have flown either way. We meet the three most used animals of the western world with incredible calmness and empathy. It begins with Gunda, a recent pig mum. She lovingly cares for her piglets, who all tumble over each other and want to have a drink. We are in the barn, very close to the family and are there when the little ones see the light of day for the first time. In black and white it is easy to recognize the personalities of the piglets from the first day. They are all individuals and have their own desire and claim to life. For me it is difficult to listen to the "Aww "s going through the audience. This very morning most of the audience probably had six months old babies on their plates, which are now in the stomach of these people and no connection is made in their heads. It's just cute to watch the piglets. Now at the latest my first tears are flowing.Quite a while later we watch how chickens from conventional farming see daylight for the first time in their lives. The door of their cage, in which the hens are crowded close together, is open, but it takes a long time before a hen dares to set foot in the grass for the first time. It's new and unusual, too much for the hens, who until now have only lived in their own filth, ripping each other's feathers out and giving everything for laying eggs. They are no longer useful to their former "owner" and would usually come to the butcher at this time. They are among the few lucky ones who have a second shot at life, the chance to really live, to be in the sun, to feel the grass under their feet. It is heartbreaking to see how dishevelled the chickens are, how many feathers they have left, how carefully they move and look around. For them it is like a dream, they do not really know what to do with the unknown environment. When they finally come across a fence again after hours of careful exploration, the lack of understanding is once again great. They try to get through it, but again find their freedom limited.
In the last third of the film, a barn door is opened and a herd of cows jumps out - literally jumps. They too have never seen daylight, they romp around in the grass and show us how they would behave if they were not locked up in their prisons for their whole lives. If they were not permanently attached to the milking machine, because they get pregnant by rape and have babies that are taken away from them right after birth to be turned into either meat or also dairy cows. After all, cow's milk is intended for human adults, isn't it?
The cows are portrayed in a wonderful and dignified way. We see close-ups that show the intelligence of the animals, the emotional understanding that we do not believe them to have. Very few people have ever really looked at cows. Sometimes you can see them in the pasture, in the mountains perhaps even up close. But in Gunda their personality is shown, their individuality, just like with the little piglets.
To give away the ending would not be a spoiler. We all know what happens to farm animals in the end. My concern was rather that this topic could be left out. The fact that a largely happy life of the animals, which they clearly do not have in 99.99% of all cases, would be portrayed and the audience would go home without reflection, would only be confirmed in the assumption that farm animals do well during their lives after all.
Although it makes me cry even more, I am relieved when the subject is taken up at the end. In keeping with the film's slow narrative style, the film also captures for a long time how Gunda, the main character of our film, desperately searches for her young and does not give up calling for them for a long time. They were only two months old.
At first I was irritated by the choice to shoot this film on a farm where the animals seem to be doing so well. As mentioned before, I thought that the viewers could therefore leave the cinema without reflection. However, Gunda touches the audience by this way of narration in a completely different way. There are already many films like Earthlings and Dominion that point out the abuses in animal farming. But many of the meat-eating population do not want to see such things. They close their eyes, see animals as objects, again and again the excuse is given that they only buy organic meat. Apart from the fact that even "organic animals" are not much better off than those from conventional farming, Gunda rather directs our attention to the question of why we decided to declare these species of animals as farm animals. Why we deny them the dignity of being, why so many people don't seem to care when they have a dead animal on their plate, even though we don't need meat to survive and it causes so many diseases, injustice in this world, water shortage and greenhouse gases. It is about the question why we kill other earthlings, although they are individuals like us, also have family structures, love each other, want to live.
Gunda is a very slow film without much plot. Observation is the keyword here. And it fits so well with the theme of looking away. Every day, billions of people close their eyes. Gunda makes them see at least 93 minutes of the lives of those who land on their plates every day.
Nothing is sugar-coated by music or unnecessarily dramatized. Nor is any human interaction shown. The attention is 100% on these animals, as it happens incredibly rarely.
In the 93 minutes it takes to watch Gunda, over 26 million animals are killed worldwide - not counting animal experiments, zoos, entertainment and animal fights. Annually, over 150 billion animals are killed for food consumption worldwide.
I would have liked to see such figures or other information included in the credits. Gunda can stand alone, but only for people who are already involved in the subject anyway. It is a beautiful and dignified portrait of animals that are otherwise deprived of any dignity in everyday life. The film shows us how these individuals would behave if they were free and we gave them the opportunity. It addresses the audience in a different way than the very graphic and brutal, but unfortunately real pictures of Earthlings, Dominion and Co. For me as a vegan it almost makes it worse. Depressing, heartbreaking, agonizing - no words can describe this feeling of being aware of what is happening every second to creatures who have never committed any other crime than being born.
Seventy-five years ago, Auschwitz was liberated and the systematic murder of the Jews finally came to an end. At this very moment pigs are being put into gas chambers, because this is the most "humane" method of killing pigs. At this moment mothers call for their calves and intuitively know that something terrible is happening to them. The value of selling their children is only about $15. Right now male chicks are being shredded because they made the mistake of being born as males and they are not "profitable". Their sisters hit the jackpot: to spend the rest of their short lives squatting in cramped conditions with other hens on bars or in their own feces, laying one egg after another until they dare to stop producing an egg every day and thus not being profitable anymore.
I cannot bring myself to calculate how many animals have had their throats slit since I started writing this article. How many cows, pigs, goats, sheep and other species have smelled the blood of their fellow animals with eyes widened in panic, who knew what it meant and fought for survival with all their strength. They do not know that from the moment of their birth it was prescribed how they would die.
Which of them have you eaten today?
Gunda is a film that everyone who eats meat should see. When you really get involved in the film, it's hard to watch. But if you belong to the meat eating fraction, you should either be able to watch it or ask yourself some important questions.
I thank Victor Kossakovsky for this distressing but necessary film. For the courage to shoot and show it, for the courage of the Berlinale to include it in the Encounters programme. And I thank you for having had the courage to read this whole article and to deal with the subject in this way. It is you who can give the animals a voice. And it starts on your plate.
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