Animal Magic
GUNDA Move over, Babe… this silk purse of a documentary introduces a new star.
I When I was four, I spent a couple of months in the countryside,” recalls Russian filmmaker Viktor Kosakovskiy. “It was a very cold winter, and my relatives, they took a piglet inside the house, and he became my best friend. We were running together and enjoying life. Then, in the New Year, he became a dinner. My relatives killed my friend. I said, ‘I cannot eat meat and I cannot talk to you.’”
You might say that Kosakovskiy’s award-winning documentary Gunda began at that moment in time. Filmed primarily on a farm in Norway, it follows the riveting title star, a sow, as she births a litter of piglets who we watch grow over the coming months. Meanwhile, scenes shot on animal sanctuaries in Spain and the UK track chickens and cows as they roam their territory. And while a plucky one-legged chicken almost steals the show, it’s Gunda and her piglets who really rule the roost, their day-to day-interactions enshrined in gorgeous monochrome.
“You can see the eyes better in black and white, see the personality,” says Kosakovskiy, whose choice was one of several that scared off investors. “The BBC wanted to give me money 20 years ago, but then they said, ‘Oh, if it’s no interviews, no voiceover, no story, no music, no people… we can’t.’ But you don’t need it. We need only four seconds, when we meet someone, to know if it’s a good person or bad person for us… 17 seconds to understand if we want to make love to this person or not!
Our eyes are a huge computer. Our eyes are connected to our emotions.”
Gunda’s beauty is its purity. Kosakovskiy, a lifelong vegetarian, became a vegan when he made it, and his crew followed suit. Chances are you’ll consider it too, for this poetic film presents a holistic view of the circle of life. It’s enormously affecting without employing shock tactics or rhetoric.
“We need to make the next step,” insists the director. “We’ve had the Industrial Revolution, the social revolution, technological revolution, sexual revolution, digital revolution… now it’s time for a revolution of empathy.” One person who certainly agrees is Joaquin Phoenix, who quickly signed on as executive producer.
“When Joaquin Phoenix was making his Oscar speech [promoting animal rights], all my team were saying, ‘Did you write the speech? He’s saying word for word what you say!’ So we decided we had to show it to him. We gave him the movie and he called me and said, ‘Finally! Someone’s made a movie about the animals. How they are. Not how we kill them, not in the slaughtering house, but just the attention on their emotions, their personalities.’” JG
ETA | 11 JUNE / GUNDA OPENS IN CINEMAS THIS SUMMER.