Gunda

Norway/USA/Britain 2020

Dir: Victor Kossakovsky

93 mins, no spoken word

Rating: G

Taken from farm to fable, the domesticated animals in Gunda star not as commodified flesh for human consumption but autonomous entities with inner lives. 

The latest medium-pushing documentary from Russian director Viktor Kossakovsky is bare in its aesthetic dogma—there’s no music, no title cards, and no people in sight—and flawless with its observational truth. Gunda dispenses with all explanations and emotional scheming tactics for a thoroughly pictorial experience. This non-fiction rarity's only soundtrack features an ambience choir of birds chirping and bugs buzzing. 

Gunda, an expressive female pig, has just given birth to a litter of impossibly adorable piglets at a Norwegian farmstead. Their high-pitch squeals, as they all fight to feed at once, announce their first bonding session with mom and each other. From the moment we are invited into the hay-laden abode, our visual contact with her and her young is always up-close. Shot with natural light and a chiaroscuro sensibility, the black-and-white frames play with shadows and silhouettes. 

With the camera close to the ground and moving swiftly about the open spaces, Kossakovsky and his co-cinematographer Egil Haaskjold Larsen prioritize the animals’ vantage point. Their visual language forces the viewer to experience the world at their eye level and not from a position of dominance. There’s a miraculous blend of craft and implicit cooperation in the astounding close proximity with which they immortalized all their non-verbal subjects — including an audacious one-legged chicken.  ...

Carlos Aguilar, RogerEbert.com

Russian film-maker Viktor Kosakovskiy offers a fascinatingly close focus on farm animals in this detailed documentary.

A sow and her litter of adorable piglets are the subject of this memorable documentary from Russian director Viktor Kosakovskiy (Aquarela), executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix. Kosakovskiy doesn’t attempt to assume the point of view of the pigs, but for 90 minutes he lives among them, his camera taking up residence inside their barn and roaming their pasture at eye level. He also visits and observes their neighbours, including a tentative flock of chickens and a herd of stoic dairy cows. There is no narration, no subtitles and no musical score but, instead, an immersive soundscape of farmyard grunts and squelches.

To call the film meditative would be to undersell Kosakovskiy’s instinct for drama and tension. The director gravitates towards runts and stragglers, such as a piglet buried beneath a pile of hay and unceremoniously crushed by its mother. A one-legged chicken is treated with similar reverence. The crisp black and white digital cinematography emphasises the piglets’ downy fur, sleepy eyes and softly rising bellies. It’s an encouragement to acknowledge the beauty, texture and aliveness of the animals. Less successful is the invitation to project interiority on to the creatures’ inscrutable faces – the way the camera fixes on a cow’s intense stare, for example, feels like a call to imbue its gaze with emotional significance.

Simran Hans, The Guardian