Category: Animal: Horse
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Nomadland. Chloe Zhao. Searchlight Pictures. 2020.
Chloe Zhao’s 2021 feature film Nomadland explores the conditions of the American landscape, nomadic experiences and estranged relationships of belonging amidst continuously unstable socio-political and economic conditions of the 21st century. Zhao blends a naturalist style of filmmaking with observational realism to explore the stories of nomads living in rural America, employing non-actors to play…
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Ostwind. Dir. Katja von Garnier. Constantin Film. 2013.
Ostwind follows the troubled teenager Mika as she is sent to her grandmother’s horse farm to study and help around the stables. Instead of helping, Mika hides in the stables and meets Ostwind, the horse responsible for Mrs. Kaltenbach’s riding injury. During their first encounter, Mika instantly feels connected to Ostwind and learns about the gift…
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Anastasia. Dir. Don Bluth, Gary Goldman. 20th Century Fox. 1997.
Oh great! A dog wants me to go to St. Petersburg. Anastasia. 1997. An adventure with strangers and a new puppy! Twentieth Century Fox’s whimsically animated Anastasia follows an orphaned Russian princess, who befriends a scruffy puppy, Pooka. The real journey begins once Pooka is introduced, winning the audience’s heart with his doe eyed, emotive…
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We Need To Talk About Kevin. Dir. Lynne Ramsay. 2011. Youtube.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to mourn Mr. Snuffles, who was snuffed out.“ Lynne Ramsay’s psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin portrays the debate of nurture versus nature through the relationship of an emotionally distant mother and psychopathic son. The purposeful inclusion of a guinea pig who serves as a vessel for…
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Bird Box. Dir. Susanne Bier. Netflix. 2018.
Susanne Bier’s Bird Box follows Malorie Hayes as she navigates the events and aftermath of an outbreak of creatures, which seem to take on the form of a person’s worst fear, deepest sadness or greatest loss, and thereby drive humans to suicide when the people look at them. However, the monsters themselves are never seen…
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Lamb. Dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson. Sena. 2021
Like a lamb to the slaughter, the slow-burn, absurd surrealness of A24’s Lamb (2021) leads the audience to an end that blends both chilling twists and heartbreaking loss as the complications that are inevitable with blurring binaries between human-animal relations come to fruition. In a playful, sardonic reconfiguration of oppositions between captivity and freedom, wildness…
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Blade Runner 2049. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Alcon Entertainment. 2017.
Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) transports us to a dystopian earth, where humans and replicants, bio-engineered humans used for slave labour, live side by side. There is a clear dichotomy within the dystopia since replicants’ entire existence is based on the premise that they are genetically coded to obey orders, rendering them docile slaves,…
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Wolfwalkers. Dir Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart. Apple TV+. 2020.
The woods are getting smaller every day. At the core of 2020’s Wolfwalkers is a fable about environmental degradation: the mounting destruction of the natural world, and the subjugation of those who live in tune with it. From its very beginning, the film seeks to examine and even disrupt the human/animal boundary in a unique…
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Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang. Dir. Susanna White. Universal Pictures. 2010.
Susanna White’s Nanny McPhee And The Big Bang (2010) introduces Mr Edelweiss as Nanny McPhee’s mischievous sidekick. Mr Edelweiss is a Jackdaw crow, a member of the Corvid species, who are known for their thieving habits. This scene is particularly interesting as the human-animal relationship portrayed causes a shift in the predicted stock characters of…