Category: Human-animal relation
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Lady Macbeth. Dir. William Oldroyd. Altitude Film Distribution. 2016.
Lady Macbeth depicts the journey of Katherine, pursuing her desire after she meets a black servant Sebastian, during her life under patriarchal oppression from her husband Alexander and his father Boris. Although the film is based on Nikolai Leskov’snovel, it has been altered, projecting the unequal act of power, encompassing race, gender, and social-class status…
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Red River. Dir. Howard Hawks. Monterey Productions. 1948.
American expansionism and the frontier myth – the romanticisation of prosperity found in claiming the ‘wilderness’ and the forceful expansion of the American border – pillars of the Western genre [1]. From Jan Troell’s The New Land (1982), John Ford’s Wagon Master (1950) to Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush (1925); Western cinema has constantly glorified the rich…
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Babe (1995) directed by Chris Noonan
The 1995 edition of Babe directed by Chris Noonan presents Babe the pig to be defined by the type of relationship he has with humans. The relationship in this film that is concentrated on is the shift from working animal to food animal. This film is enough to turn anyone vegetarian, in fact James Cromwell…
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Rio. Dir. by Carlos Saldanha. Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Animation. 2011.
Opening with the vibrant celebration of colours and exotic sounds of the Brazilian rainforest, our focus is drawn to a nervous exotic baby macaw bird called Blu who plucks up the courage to attempt his maiden flight. Predictably he tumbles towards the ground, making a soft spongy safe landing, before commotion strikes and an attack…
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Children of Men. Dir. by Alfonso Cuarón. Universal Pictures. 2006.
Children of Men (2006) dir. by Alfonso Cuarón is a science-fiction action drama that takes place in a Britain in 2027. The world for around 18 years has been infertile, unable to produce children. This dystopian scenario has caused all the worlds countries to collapse with the only surviving nation-state being Britain. Britain has remained…
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Okja. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Netflix. 2017
There are two kinds of pigs that make an appearance in Okja; genetically modified super-pigs and greedy, corporate capitalist pigs. The slaughterhouse scene forces the viewer to dispel any false idealism surrounding the reality of the meat industry, an explicit criticism of how human exceptionalist thinking blended with modern ‘capitalist delirium’ [1] has ruined the…
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Arachnophobia, Dir. Frank Marshall, Hollywood Pictures, Franklin Entertainment, 1990.
In one of the most suspenseful scenes in Arachnophobia, a young woman goes for a shower in the bathroom but is ambushed by one of the spider offspring in a tense cat-and-mouse sequence. Intended as an obvious play on the shower trope in horror films – where a conventionally attractive woman is stalked and attacked…
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Penguin Bloom. Dir. Glendyn Ivin. Netflix, Inc. 2021.
Inspired by true events, Penguin Bloom tells the story of Sam Bloom, a mother and wife who became paralysed after a serious accident. As she struggles through a difficult recovery, a small miracle occurs, a magpie called Penguin enters the Bloom family, changing the course of their lives forever. This scruffy looking creature builds an…