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.

Walkabout

Walkabout. Nicolas Roeg, 1971. 
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #10, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.

Summary: Many scenes of wild animals being killed and dismembered. All events are completely real, and the pain and terror of the animals is evident.

Details:
1) Our warm-up for the carnage to follow is a one-second shot of a dead plucked chicken (head still on, European shop style), 3:16.
2) The aborigine pursues a large lizard then spears it and beats it to death, 34:55-35:10. We get detailed close-ups of several other large lizards hanging from a cord around his waist through 35:55.
3) Decaying corpses of camels 39:58-40:06.
4) A kangaroo is speared and wounded at 40:50. We see his wound bleeding while he is chased through 41:26. He is speared, beaten to death, and graphically dismembered through 42:08.
5) A partially gutted rabbit is thrown onto a cooking fire and we see its organs swell, 43:26-43:42.
6) A small boar is lying on its back in a cook fire, flayed open, 49:42. The aborigine gets a handful of its guts and smears it on the boy’s sunburn, through 50:15.
7) A montage sequence that is 50% graphic animal killings begins at 58:55 and continues through 1:01:07. During this 2+ minutes: a large fish is speared and tossed on the ground; the aborigine chews on a (whole, unskinned) bat; a large lizard is speared and falls dead; a kangaroo is speared, falls dead, and is butchered; another big lizard is speared and we see it wince in pain then watch its flesh burst on a fire; another kangaroo is clubbed to death.
8) A large dead bird is carried by its feet, 1:08:12-1:08:52. We see it again 1:11:03-1:11:07 and 1:12:26-1:12:48.
9) Numerous water buffalo are shot and killed 1:16:53-1:18:04. A dead buffalo has its throat slit and is bled 1:18:55-1:19:10. We see the bodies decaying and covered with maggots 1:20:00-1:20:20.
10) View of a dead bird, 1:26:55-1:27:00
11) Surprise 1-second flashback to dismembering of a kangaroo, 1:37:35.

How unfortunate that this visionary filmmaker chose trashy “Mondo” style animal torture to portray intelligent ideas. Much has been intelligently written about Roeg’s superb design aesthetic, ingenious integration of sound and image, and themes explored in Walkabout. But his creative genius does not mandate our sitting through the slaughters. There are many other ways that Roeg could have demonstrated the contrasts between cultures, the sexual tension, and the grand mysteries of the film without resorting to base kill-porn.


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