The Guardian (USA)

The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future review – gripping tale sprinkled with animal magic

- Cath Clarke

First-time Chilean director Francisca Alegría turns up the arthouse dial past eleven right from the name of her debut feature. The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future is a conspicuou­sly poetic title that gives every impression that we’re in for a hardcore cinepatien­ce tester. I have to admit that it made my heart sink. But while, yes, TCWSSF is a dreamy magical realist fable with an environmen­tal message, Alegría weaves into her tale an emotionall­y satisfying, gripping family drama, with singing cows – and fish too.

It begins with the fish, dying by the shoal-load on the banks of a river, poisoned by pollution from a nearby factory. As the fish die, a woman gasps to the surface of the water. This is Magdalena (Mía Maestro), who drowned herself decades ago. Now she is back from the dead as if time stopped – still gorgeous, still dressed in the boilersuit she wore when she drove her motorbike deliberate­ly into the river. Magdalena’s husband collapses when he spots her outside a mobile phone shop. Their adult daughter Cecilia (Leonor Varela) – just a girl when her mum died – drives from the city with her two kids to look after him at the family’s dairy farm.

The film is a mediation on damage and repair. The point, I think, is that our resilience, like the natural world around us, is fragile and interdepen­dent. In the river, when the fish die, the swans starve. Childhood trauma makes Cecilia cold, unable to connect with her own kids – the eldest especially, a transgende­r girl (beautifull­y played by newcomer Enzo Ferrada Rosati). It’s a thoughtful film, tender, hopeful, with some knockout bovine performanc­es too. Though in the end the cows don’t do any actual singing; they leave the dirty work to human stand-ins.

• The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future is released on 24 March in UK and Irish cinemas.

 ?? ?? Back from the dead … Mía Maestro (Magdalena) in The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future
Back from the dead … Mía Maestro (Magdalena) in The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future

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