The recent documentary "Cow" gives us an excuse to delve deep into the oeuvre of Andrea Arnold, two movies at opposite ends of her resume, connected with apt titles.
COW (B+) - Wow. How now. A dairy cow at the center of this unnarrated documentary encapsulates the adage "Life's a bitch, and then you die." Ow.
Luma is a lumbering beast who is put through her paces on a daily basis, hooked up to a milking machine. We see her give birth twice. Each time, the calf is immediately weaned from her and separated from her. (The mother's howl at one point is reminiscent of the grieving orcas in "Blackfish.") She herself is another machine on the farm. At times we get to follow the calf, whether engaging in childlike play or getting her nascent horns burned out of the top of her head.
But Luma is the star. Or the tragic hero. Her saga calls to mind last year's "Gunda," a similar documentary, about the travails of a sow with a huge litter of piglets. Luma endures her indignities, but she eventually has trouble moving because of what appears to be a highly inflamed udder.
Andrea Arnold has spent her career in feature films exploring the desperate lives of drudgery lived by the underclass in foundational films like "Fish Tank," "Red Road" and "American Honey." Here she echoes those themes involving a lack of free will as she embeds her camera on this pleasant little farm in Scotland. The workers are barely seen or heard, although we do get to listen along to the random pop tunes that are piped into the cow barn (Billie Eilish; Angel Olsen's "Unfuck the World"; even the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York"). The camera elbows in close to the animals and tails them around every inch of the farm.
At one point, Luma and the other adult bovines are allowed to traipse outdoors to a field. We watch them eat and sleep and stare blankly into the breeze and the sun. It appears to be a rare treat, which makes the cruelty of the daily drudgery seem even more painful to endure. You can tell yourself that these are just dumb animals who exist to clothe and nourish us, but just try not to feel at least a little guilty watching poor Luma get through the workday.
MILK (1998) (B) - Arnold's early 11-minute short is a haunting examination of a mother's grief. Hetty (Linda Steadman) has suffered a miscarriage, and she skips the baby's funeral, rashly choosing to take a road trip with a stranger, a young man she meets randomly.
Steadman is riveting as the broken woman, whose residual lactation gives the film not only its title but its gripping ending. In this brief running time, we'll never know if this is a one-time fling or if Hetty is headed toward a destructive mourning period. Arnold wisely lets her character's devastation run its course, mixing a bit of danger with melancholy.
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