Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road). Satyajit Ray, 1955.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #783, included in box set #782 The Apu Triology, released 2015. Bengali language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 125 minutes.

Summary: Physical abuse to kittens.

Details:
1) The aging old “Auntie” intentionally throws her big filthy fabric bag full of crap on top of a kitten, completely covering it, 11:28. The camera stays on the bag through 11:33 and we do not see the kitten emerge. 
2) Immediately afterwards and through 11:38, she steps from the front door of the house and pointlessly picks up another kitten and hurls him down into the dirt. 

Auntie is a complex and confusing character in this first film of the The Apu Trilogy. Despite the reverence shown for her advanced age, she feels overly entitled and makes no effort to contribute to the family that supports her. She is genuinely kind to young Apu and his sister, to the point that the mother accuses Auntie of corrupting the girl by indoctrinating her to petty theft and lethargy. There is evidence of these character flaws taught by one generation to another, and Auntie’s pointless cruelty to the kittens indicates an underlying malicious and destructive personality, just as the mother accuses.

 @ BL
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