Gunda

At first, we can't grasp what we are seeing, and it takes a while to sink in. Throughout the film, both beauty and reality will often rise up to temporarily disorient, take our breath away, and even overwhelm.

This is not your cute animal film, though it has that too. It's more akin to those moments of serenity and joy that can arise when we are watching babies move or small children explore. We feel both intimacy and otherness, and perhaps even bewilderment.

In my imagination it doesn't seem impossible that this film could be nominated for awards beyond Best Documentary. It would need its own version of Script Writing, Choreography, Directing, Editing, and Producing.

But the Cinematography! Obviously it's often spontaneous and even seat-of-the-pants. Somehow there is an endless outpouring of breath-taking photographic moments in high-resolution black and white. Will there be a picture book?

It's not that the shots are a miracle of technique; I'm sure they are. It's more how they touch such a wide range of feeling. A world is created and then ...

Like the beginning, the ending takes a while to sink in. Hushed. Eye and heart, conscience and consciousness, awakened.

A stunning black and white silent (save the grunting) documentary that soft focuses on the life of a pig. Seems innocuous enough, but there is magic here. Shot at ground level, and sparing nothing from farm life, "Gunda" is not here to shock, or illicit clown tears, but to have a look, like a wide-eyed child might back in the day when summers were not filled with organized sports camps or school continuation. It captures that slow, languid, breezy feel of beautiful boredom.

Opening with the birth of a litter, it follows the towering mother sow as she clumsily deals with the runt of her offspring. It is astonishing, inviting, and then shockingly cruel. What is happening is not exactly clear, and there is no deep voice over to mansplain nature. That is the beauty of this film: it evolves along with the undetermined storyline.

A slow, dreamy bit of cinema, "Gunda" works well in transporting the audience to a world most are familiar with but few actually know or have experienced hands on. The sharp monochrome delivery turns a pigsty into a pleasant aesthetic. The absence of smell helps. Nothing revelatory here, and since this is a farm, well, let's just say that the animals are not in charge, and there is a sudden dramatic turn to remind everyone about life's cold harsh realities.

"Gunda" is an animal film that is really not an animal film. It is a brilliant exercise in moment capture, shot with an addictive lens, documenting some life lessons, without preaching or dwelling on anything in particular. Pigs in showbiz are usually funny, smart or exotic. Not here. "Gunda" is a mother, and that is that.

• hipCRANK.

...although more of the story of the chickens and cows life would have balanced it better.

Many informative reviews here already, hence I wanted to add some facts I looked up afterwards, also as some here got it wrong, but I won't as I don't like spoilers. You find every question which (hopefully) pops up afterwards by doing a quick search.

I'll only leave a good note I liked from AccidentalSmallHolder net ehich addresses something you'll (hopefully) also think about afterwards:

"If pig keeping isn't for you, please do the next best thing and source your pork, bacon and sausages from ethically reared pigs. If it doesn't say the pigs are born and reared outdoors, they probably weren't so don't be fooled by misleading labelling. Even pigs that are reared outdoors may have been born to sows kept indoors, in crates, so do be aware of labelling - it's more about what it doesn't say, than what it does."

IN BRIEF: A well-made but slow moving pig's tale.

JIM'S REVIEW: (RECOMMENDED) A pig and her litter, a one-legged chicken, and some cows are the main cast in this fine documentary, Gunda, Viktor Kosakovskiy's understated cinematic plea for animal rights.

Gunda is an enormous sow that has just given birth to a dozen small piglets. This is their story of life down on the farm. Call me a city boy, but the film depicts the daily mundane weeks in this pig's heaven (or hell) and I have chosen the right lifestyle for me. Still, it is a fascinating place to visit.

There are no voiceovers, no sweeping musical score, no Disney sentimentalizing... just straight-forward filming of natural country events. There are many grunts, squeals, and moos to be heard and lots of mud and flies buzzing around too.

This is a well-made documentary that tries to convey an animal's everyday existence. The wonderful sound design by Alexander Dudarev immerses the moviegoer into this rarely-seen animal kingdom. The masterful b&w photography by Egil Håskjold Larsen and the director is stunning with its low-level point of view and detailed close-ups of farm critters.

However, the story seems non-existent and Mr. Kosakovskiy lets scenes go on for far too long, at a turtle's pace, although none of those creatures are in sight. The documentary does eventually build to its subtle message about the cruelty of our food chain, but any astute moviegoer knows the fate of our little dirty dozen from the start. (A side note: All of our violent deeds are strongly implied, but mercifully not shown.) I could say there is much food for thought in this documentary, but then I would be called insensitive or callous. Let's just say, this film deserves your attention. (GRADE: B-)

For a subject not often given an artistic treatment, barnyard animals, Gunda is exquisitely shot. In a loving way, it shows that pigs, cows, and chickens have emotions, that they enjoy being alive, and that they have dignity. I loved it for that, and if just looking at animals go about their lives on a farm is appealing to you, this is probably your film, but otherwise, you might find its 93 minutes passing rather slowly.

There is clearly an underlying message here, but I loved how restrained the film was in getting this across. It was filmed at humane farms and sanctuaries, without narration of any kind, and that includes holding back from the customary text at the end of documentaries which fill us in on various facts and details. The viewer is left to connect the dots from the images on the screen to what was on their dinner plate most recently, or the neat cuts of packaged meat in the grocery, seen as commodities instead of living creatures. The scene where the mother pig frantically searches for her babies towards the end is distressing, but a far more damning portrayal of the cruelty of the meat industry would have been at a factory farm, and/or a slaughterhouse. In other words, this is just the tip of an enormous, immoral iceberg - and yet if taking babies away from a mother doesn't hit you in the gut, I'm not sure what will.