It is not pleasant to see cows being shaken from one side to another in an industrial farm with the blow of an electric baton. The documentary Animal, the latest work by Cyril Dion, makes use of some resource images like these to show, without filters and openly, what is hidden behind our daily steaks. At this point in the film, never better said, these images of animal abuse accumulate in the retina along with many others, a lot of militant cinema, which has been denouncing for years what man does on a daily basis, and without shame, with the animal kingdom. For example, the documentary The end of the meat that we talked about back in the day.
Animal was part of the official selection of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and reached the general public, on French cinema screens, last December. More than 5,000 people have participated in its financing, through kisskissbank, who contributed more than 300,000 euros to make the film a reality. The feature film is announced under the slogan: “Each generation has its struggle. This is ours.”
Again Dion resorts to the genre of road movies ecological, as he did with Demain, starring in this case two teenagers, staunch defenders of the environment. Bella Lack is a 16-year-old Londoner who advocates for animal rights. Vipulan Puvaneswaran is a Parisian who takes to the streets every time there is a climate demonstration. Both take us on a tour of the wide world, from India to Kenya, passing through California, in search of people and initiatives that look at and understand other animals, non-humans, as they say, from another perspective than the strictly commercial.
It is already known that our use and abuse of animals, among other reasons, is leading us to the sixth mass extinction, since 60% of vertebrate wild animals have disappeared in the last forty years. Does it matter that species disappear? In the press kit there is a quote from Claude Levi-Strauss which is relevant: “The existence of a species is as important as the work of a great painter. We go to great lengths to protect your creation in museums, while treating living species with incredible carelessness and contempt.”
Citizens cry and are outraged at the images of shaken and beaten cows, but they do not want to waste even seven minutes on the highway to combat climate change
Returning to the film, the cinematographic tour of the wide globe allows us to listen first-hand, for example, to personalities such as the ethologist Jane Goodall. He says that when he returned to the UK to present his field research after living with chimpanzees in Africa, the university scholars who were supposed to evaluate his contributions criticized his giving the animals names. Since they were objects of study, each one should be cited only with numbers.
Does being an object of study mean being just that: an object? Goodall still remembers that moment, from the height of her age and international recognition, accurately and sadly. Perhaps the hope lies in the fact that this precursor who was the renowned primatologist decades ago finds today not only the unanimous applause of the international community, but is also understood by those two adolescents who listen to her and feel ashamed of others.
Cyril Dion was present at the session of Animal which I attended. He commented after the viewing that, for him, the biggest problem to undo the mess of this unhealthy relationship between man and the animal world is the excessive power that the industrial lobbies have in Brussels. This causes European legislation to end up biased, that is, contemplating the interests of large meat producers or fishing groups more than the convictions of ordinary European citizens.
According to Dion, high-level politicians, with whom he has rubbed shoulders for years, do not show much interest in defending the ecological cause. They agree with the discourse that is presented to them, but they do not lift a finger to change the status quo. He explained that a few years ago he was received in audience by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to whom he explained for 45 minutes what, according to him, should be done to combat climate change. Macron did not want to accept his proposals because it seemed to him that they would put the French on a war footing: it would be necessary to drastically reduce the use of the car, the consumption of meat… And in fact, the president, in my opinion, only put his finger on The sore. Politicians, it is bad for us to accept it, are more often than not simple reflections of the society that has raised them to power.
Cyril Dion was once part of the Citizen Convention for Climate, a French institution created to collect citizen proposals in the fight against climate change. They ended up proposing 149 measures, including reducing the speed limit on French motorways (currently 130 km/h) to 110 km to considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That simple measure aroused the anger of locals and strangers throughout the French territory. Dion was still wondering before the audience how we are going to adjust our lives if we are not willing to make even this small sacrifice. In fact, the limitation meant in practice for the driver a loss of only seven minutes on a two-hour journey.
The conclusion is that, today, citizens cry and are outraged at the images of shaken and beaten cows, but they do not want to waste even seven minutes on the highway to combat climate change. And hence the title of my post: Will the exposure and repeated explanation of the global disaster change the attitude of the viewers? In other words, will we go from spectators to actors, all without exception: politicians, legislators and the general public?
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