In Cow, the first documentary from Fish Tank and American Honey director Andrea Arnold, we follow dairy cow Luna through her life on a farm in the south of England. At one point early on, Luna looks directly into the camera and lets out several moos, as if she’s trying to give her own version of her story. Arnold attempts to tell the story of Luna and her repetitive life, full of milking and birthing other cows, and without judgment, but simply with an unbiased lens. The end product almost becomes something akin to Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, but with a cow.

With Arnold’s last few films, she’s told the story of women trying to escape their situations by utilizing a meandering approach with her camera, as if she’s a spectator to these events and not an active participant. Arnold takes a similar approach to Cow, yet there’s far more that the audience personally brings to the narrative of this film. For some, Cow might be an oppressive look at the life of an animal that is irrelevant once they can no longer meet the demands. For others, it can be a glimpse at the cyclical movement of life, the quiet joys and the harsh pains, as told through our voiceless protagonist. Or maybe a bit of both. Like Arnold’s past work, she’s not there to cast judgment on the situation, but she’s simply a documenter of the situation.

Cow is decidedly slow-moving, a quiet, contemplative look at Luna and her process through the farming industry. We see how protective Luna is when she gives birth to a calf—a situation she’s clearly been through many times before—and the frustrations at the various indignities that an animal has to go through, whether through dehorning or shaving down hooves. By the end of Luna’s story, we’ve seen a life full of pain and compassion, and it’s hard not to feel empathy for this cow.

cow-1
Image via IFC

RELATED: Andrea Arnold's 'Cow' Trailer Reveals the Ups and Downs of Life as a Dairy Cow

Yet some of Arnold’s narrative instincts don’t work quite as well as others in her first documentary. The farm that Luna lives on seems to constantly be blasting Radio One, which means the most routine experiences are soundtracked to Angel Olsen, Kali Uchis, or Billie Eilish. As if we needed to feel even more for Luna, some of the final scenes with the cow are feature a cover of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love,” as if Arnold wants to ensure that we truly feel the emotions of the film’s final moments. Again, with Fish Tank and American Honey, Arnold has deployed pop music to help tell the story of her characters, but the decision to add pop music to Cow clashes with the nonintrusive style the film has set up.

Even though Cow is effective overall, as we get a look at the grand scope of Luna’s life, it doesn’t have the power or beauty of something like last year’s Gunda from director Viktor Kossakovsky, which attempted to tell a similar story, but did so with gorgeous cinematography and heart-wrenching moments. That’s not to say that Cow isn’t as capable in its vague narrative, but Cow does at times feel like a bit more of a grind than Kossakovsky’s film.

But Cow is a powerful look at the life of one cow through the lens of a director who knows how to build tension and sentiment through minimal means. Not all of Arnold’s usual tricks work effectively in Cow, but for a first documentary, Cow is an engrossing and surprisingly emotional look at the farming industry through the eyes of a single bovine.

Rating: B-

Cow is playing in select theaters and on VOD now.