Film Review: The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future | Dir. Francesca Alegria
© Kino Lorber
Written by Belle McIntyre
If you simply allow yourself to sink into the extraordinary natural beauty of southern Chile along the Los Cruces River, you will wish to stay there. The sad and terrible thing in this place is the fact that it is sick from poisoning by a papermill upriver. We learn this early as the camera lovingly scans over the topography and down to the creeks and reveals hundreds of dead fish below and bees behaving badly above. Out of this beautiful but ominous forest from the river arises the battered but beautiful Magdalena (Mía Maestro), dead for many years. Unchanged from the time of her death, she is a ravishing creature, still wearing the same biker’s clothes she wore in the suicide. Muddy and bedraggled, she finds her way to the town where her widowed husband, Pablo catches sight of her and nearly, has a heart attack.
© Kino Lorber
Already it is becoming very apparent that this is not as earthbound as it first seemed. Incorporating choirs of animals singing mournful songs while dying imbues the story with a mystical/religious and magical quality which allows the surfacing of the long-dead Magdalena to lend itself to all manners of interpretation. Magdalena has come back unable to speak, which adds to her mystery. Cecilia (Leonor Varela), the daughter of Magdalena and Pablo, who happens to be a doctor living in town, jumps into action to be there and take care of her father who she and everyone else thinks is very sick or losing his mind. She informs her two kids that they are temporarily going to live on the dairy farm which he owns and runs with his son, who is Cecilia’s brother. He is an odd loner. Cecilia’s prepubescent son Tomás identifies as a girl and dresses and behaves convincingly whenever possible. He feels a certain soul connection with the myth of Magdalena as a fellow outsider, although they had never met. He ideates suicide.
© Kino Lorber
Cecilia’s relationship with her mother’s memory is unkind. She is still very angry at her mother for leaving them and causing so much pain to all of them by her suicide. It seems everyone in the family has a different response to Magdalena based on differing ideas of her. Their individual experiences were often very funny, especially when Magdalena cops her grandson’s cellphone and learns to communicate.
© Kino Lorber
© Kino Lorber
All the while, the ecological disaster poisoning the water has spread to birds, crops and livestock. It looks as if Pablo will lose all of his cattle and the whole countryside will be desolated. The arrival of Magdalena, an agent of change, can alter trajectories. Time seems to stand still while deeply hidden shameful family secrets are exposed and forgiven. There are lyrically beautiful and mysterious goings on in the natural world which seems to be changing direction and going into a more promising direction. You could call it an epiphany. I did not want it to end.
© Kino Lorber
