Gunda does not humanize the animal's emotions, but simply shows them. And there is value in this, because there is nothing to argue about. Simply an unfiltered window into these animals lives, and you come to your own conclusions, rather than be told what you are looking at. And the film even manages to communicate some of the mundane elements of farm life while still capturing your attention.
There is also a lot of creativity with the camera angles to keep it visually interesting, but still serious with the black and white, which helps you to focus on the actions, rather than the scenery.
Some things I personally took away from this film:
At the start of the film, you get a look at how easily the mother pigs will often hurt or cause serious injury and suffocation to some of their newborn piglets without even realizing it.
Seeing the chickens hesitate to leave the cage, I realized that chickens are naturally afraid of the predators natural outside their shelter, and even the predators in the sky, so they naturally have an increased alertness/stress outside. If you look closely at the chickens outside, you can see how they stress over any little noise they hear in the distance.
I found it sad when the piglets were playing with each other, and the mom, and even one of the piglets tried to comfort the one that had an injured leg, who couldn't play.
Something that I never knew before was that cows will mutually scratch each others faces with their tails, and ask each other to wag tails by picking up their friend's tail with their horn.
In the end, you see Gunda struggling as she looks for her babies, calling for them, pacing around quickly. You can simply see the distress. No narration needed, and narration would only lessen the impact of what you are seeing anyways.
I only wish that they could have included a bit more happy/playful footage to contrast with the darkness in the majority of their lives, and break a little bit more from the mundane/repetitive parts of the footage, to create a more entertaining film that will keep the attention of non-vegans.
My guess as to the entertainment and captivation value for a non-vegan is 5/10.
As a vegan, my own enjoyment was a 6/10, but I rate this film 7.5/10 because of the unique way of communicating these animal's sentience that I think can be more attractive for some people over the other vegan films out there.
There is also a lot of creativity with the camera angles to keep it visually interesting, but still serious with the black and white, which helps you to focus on the actions, rather than the scenery.
Some things I personally took away from this film:
At the start of the film, you get a look at how easily the mother pigs will often hurt or cause serious injury and suffocation to some of their newborn piglets without even realizing it.
Seeing the chickens hesitate to leave the cage, I realized that chickens are naturally afraid of the predators natural outside their shelter, and even the predators in the sky, so they naturally have an increased alertness/stress outside. If you look closely at the chickens outside, you can see how they stress over any little noise they hear in the distance.
I found it sad when the piglets were playing with each other, and the mom, and even one of the piglets tried to comfort the one that had an injured leg, who couldn't play.
Something that I never knew before was that cows will mutually scratch each others faces with their tails, and ask each other to wag tails by picking up their friend's tail with their horn.
In the end, you see Gunda struggling as she looks for her babies, calling for them, pacing around quickly. You can simply see the distress. No narration needed, and narration would only lessen the impact of what you are seeing anyways.
I only wish that they could have included a bit more happy/playful footage to contrast with the darkness in the majority of their lives, and break a little bit more from the mundane/repetitive parts of the footage, to create a more entertaining film that will keep the attention of non-vegans.
My guess as to the entertainment and captivation value for a non-vegan is 5/10.
As a vegan, my own enjoyment was a 6/10, but I rate this film 7.5/10 because of the unique way of communicating these animal's sentience that I think can be more attractive for some people over the other vegan films out there.