A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn

Pink Eiga

All Region NTSC

Pink Cinema is always innovative and challenging and can range from the playful and downright bizarre to the touching and moving. Daisuke Goto is a well-respected Japanese Pink cinema director and produced a range of unusual films including two Zero Woman S & M titles and Roman Porno Bed Partner (1988) among many others. This film is very different and explores territory not every seen before in any sort of erotica.

A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn aka Cowshed of Immorality (2003) is not simply a pink film but one marked by character development, realistic cinematography and moody slow pacing. There is enough here to keep a watcher of world cinema intrigued while also moving into much stranger pastures.

The film is about a sad, aging and clearly senile old fellow called Shukichi who is living at the edge of sanity. He is under constant pressure from property developers to sell his land but it is all he had and he will not sell. One of his prize possessions is his cow Hanako (in the Pink Eiga US release she is called Bessie), when she dies his daughter in law decides to take rather unusual and drastic measures. She strips naked and takes the place of the cow. It is hard to explain how bizarre the scene looks when you first see the dear old man go to the shed and there in the dirt and shit is a woman with her rump showing to the world. Shukichi gives her a nice little pat and says good morning and then goes to work milking while she issues forth cow noises ! As time progresses, however, things get a little closer than we may first suspect.

Here is film which is reflecting on the sad lot of farmers, the evils of land developers and the senility of old age by having an old man milk his daughter in law. The film even includes melancholic flashbacks of the cow’s demise and the emotional connection between Shukichi and his prize milker. Of course things do not go well when Shukichi's daughter discovers their unusual arrangement and tries to put an end to it.

Don’t be fooled however, this is a pink film and there are all sorts of unusual sex scenes, nudity and passion, including a subplot with a explicit portrayal of a relationship between a senior doctor and his much younger nurse, but it is more erotic than exploitative in my mind.

I must admit I found this an extremely unusual world of cinema, quirky, intriguing and amusing. It shows the sheer audacity and innovative nature of Pink Cinema and is highly recommended.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No.2 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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