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.

The Color of Pomegranates

The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova). Sergei Parajanov, 1969.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #918, released 2018. Armenian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 79 minutes.

Summary: Sacrificing of animals.

Details:
1) Fish gasp and suffer in a staged vignette, 4:54-5:04.
2) A decapitated rooster is used ceremonially, 12:33-12:54.
3) Three rams are sacrificed, gutted, butchered, and their ribbon-decorated heads displayed, 1:02:10-1:03:36.
4) Chickens are handled roughly, in the way many people consider acceptable. They are held inverted by their feet while the perp talks and gestures with his chicken-holding hands, 1:04:00-1:04:25.
5) Decapitated roosters flail and die around a dying man, 1:18:43-1:19:03.

Culturally-sanctioned animal murder is the only aspect of this film that is not wonderful. I strongly recommend this Criterion remaster, skipping several brief scenes as I have notated, if you so choose. The Criterion Blu-ray also includes several excellent supplemental films:

• Mikhail Vartanov’s important 1969 documentary about Armenian art The Color of Armenian Land.
• a 43-minute video essay by James Steffen, Decoding The Color Pomegranates, which does include some quick images of the animal sacrifices.
• Martiros Vartanov’s short abstraction, The Last Film (2014).
• Patrick Cazals’ excellent 2003 documentary about our director, Sergei Parajanov: The Rebel.
• A 26-minute 1977 documentary by Carlos de los Llanos about the poet Sayat-Nova, subject of Parajanoz’s film (from the series “Faith and Traditions of the Oriental Orthodox Churches”).

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