ZooScope

Tag: HAR: Farming

  • Blade Runner 2049. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Alcon Entertainment. 2017.

    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,…

  • Okja. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Netflix. 2017

    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…

  • God’s Own Country. Dir. Francis Lee. Picturehouse Entertainment. 2017.

    As a film which centers around a farming family, God’s Own Country is inseparable from animal life. Francis Lee sets the 2017 rural drama during the lambing season at a farm, thus crafting a display of the distress caused by animal breeding and the inevitable horror of animal death. Customary to the Social Realist tradition,…

  • The Good Dinosaur. Dir. Peter Sohn. Disney Pixar. 2015.

    Ever wondered what life would be like if dinosaurs never became extinct? Well, you’ll never have to wonder again thanks to The Good Dinosaur. In this alternate world human-animal relationships are reversed as the dinosaurs are civilised and positioned above humans hierarchically. In doing so, this film evokes questions surrounding the ethics of human practices…

  • 1922. Dir. Zak Hilditch. Netflix. 2017.

    Zak Hilditch’s 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s 1922 follows the story of Wilfred James, a corn farmer living in Nebraska, who, alongside the assistance of his teenage son, Henry, conspired to murder his wife, Arlette, after a dispute about selling her recently inherited land to move to the city. The story unravels the consequences of…

  • The Secret of NIMH. Dir. Don Bluth. MGM/UA Entertainment Company. 1982.

    “We can no longer live as rats. We know too much.” The Secret of NIMH is remembered by many as a dark, creepy, and disturbing film, with retrospectives published in recent years referring to it as leaving basically every kid who sees it with a lingering dread. Don Bluth’s directorial debut after leaving the Walt…

  • Okja. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Netflix. 2017.

    Okja[1] is a South-Korean/American film about a girl called Mija and her best friend, a ‘super pig’ called Okja. When Okja gets taken by the company who made her, the Mirando corporation, Mija leaves her idyllic mountain-top home and goes on a dark adventure, determined to find Okja and bring her back home. At the…

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Dir. Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. EMI Films. 1975.

    In the opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail [1], a grassy hill is shown with the sound of horse’s hooves—only for a skipping King Arthur, and coconut-clomping servant to appear, sans horse. This sets the scene for the finest ever cinematic use of imaginary horses.

  • Oldboy. Dir. Park Chan-wook. Show East & Tartan Films. 2003.

    Park Chan-wook’s 2003 film Oldboy is at its core a thriller, a revenge story of Oh Dae-su (played by Choi Min-sik) imprisoned in a room for 15 years without any knowledge of the reasons why, and who is then suddenly released back into the world and told by his captor to try to work out…

  • Carnage. Dir. Simon Amstell. BBC. 2017.

    What would the world be like if everybody was vegan? According to Simon Amstell’s vision of the future in Carnage, it’s a peaceful utopia in which the young vegans of tomorrow frolic in fields and enjoy food much more, knowing that nothing was taken from an animal, albeit one in which the older generations of ex-meat-eaters…