An appropriately bucolic, unrushed gem of a Kiwi movie
When the Cows Come Home (E, 104 mins) Directed by Costa Botes Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★ 1⁄ 2
There is a moment within When the Cows Come Home when subject Andrew Johnstone turns to director Costa Botes – and says, ‘‘I guess I need to address the elephant in the room... and that’s mood disorders’’.
Johnstone goes on to talk about swings and depressions – and a diagnosis of bipolar when he was a younger man.
It’s an honest, well-earned reflection and it speaks of the trust that Botes has earned from the reclusive Johnstone. But that moment doesn’t arrive until around the 90-minute mark, only 12 minutes or so from the end.
Any film-maker I know would have put that statement near the front of the film, as a way of introducing, framing and contextualising the story that is to come. But Botes is more sensitive and compassionate than most.
He is a superb listener and observer and his films have a way of being far more interested in what people actually do than in who anyone thinks they are.
Johnstone lives on his parents’ dairy farm, near Cambridge, in the mighty Waikato. Botes’ camera roams and feeds at leisure.
On a proper cinema screen, When The Cows Come Home is an uncommonly beautiful, locally made documentary.
Johnstone’s relationship to the animals is mostly observational and playful. He knows, in that matter of fact but not cruel way that all farmers do, that these are the economic units of the farm and in a year or so, the cows will be slaughtered. But he also befriends a couple and raises the money to buy them and keep them alive.
In the long, quiet moments, we watch with Johnstone and we learn a bit more about these complex, social creatures. And as we watch the cows, Botes watches Johnstone, and that complex, social, creature also begins to sharpen and become clearer to us.
Around the turn of the century, Johnstone ventured out into the world, married, became a musician and a singer-songwriter, before a stint at journalism and an ill-fated shift at Rip It Up magazine.
None of these things worked out, in any commonly accepted definition of what ‘‘worked out’’ might mean. But they all became a part of the man – and he talks knowingly about how he has changed and what he has learned.
Other interviewees – parents, co-workers – fill in a few gaps in the record, but it is Johnstone’s voice that tells us the most.
When the Cows Come Home is an appropriately bucolic and unrushed film. It reminded me at times of The Devil and Daniel Johnston. But also of Gunda, that mighty ode to a pig that I still reckon was the best film I saw last year.
But mostly I was just grateful that there is still a place in our cinemas and in our consciousness for a story as small – and as universal – as this.
Watch closely – and don’t expect it to rush – and When the Cows Come Home is a gem.
When the Cows Come Home is screening in select cinemas.