Retrospective 2015

The Animals Film

Victor Schonfeld, Myriam Alaux
USA 1981
136 min
V'15

A history of violence: Young chickens getting their beaks cut off on Factory Farms, a little monkey with metal bars attached to it’s body subject, giant sea turtles pulled on iron hooks on a pier, where ready-made tortoise soup cans are placed beside the living animals. THE ANIMALS FILM collects a seemingly endless series of images of daily cruelty amidst us, starting from early silent pictures until 1981. Maybe the mindset, that allowed the human being to do so, started long ago with Descartes. He separated body and soul and declared the body a machine. Due to the lack of souls animals could be treated solely as machines. This movie, narrated by Julie Christie, switches perspectives, but shows no changes of living conditions. This is a movie on livestock, not on pets.

Supporting film: DAS BOXENDE KÄNGURUH

Credits
  • Julie Christie
  • Sandy Dennis - Mrs. Roberts
  • Richard Course
  • Robin Howard
  • Tom Regan
  • Ronnie Lee
  • Richard Ryder
  • Victor Schonfeld
  • Kevin Keating
  • Victor Schonfeld
  • Myriam Alaux
  • Victor Schonfeld
  • Robert Wyatt
Beyond the Frame, Slick Pix
16 mm
col
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