The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future

In spite of its missteps, The Cow Who Sang is an assured first feature that gently weaves an intimate, personal story about motherhood, family, trauma and loss into a wider fable about environmental ruin...

There are moments of eerie movie magic here as well as a pervasive didacticism and at least one scene that’s lit like a telenovela. Alegria is one to watch, though, and so is the movie if you’re feeling chancy.

With finely tuned magical realist sensibilities, first-time writer-director Francisca Alegria launches into a hauntingly atmospheric tale that denounces humanity’s untenable relationship with the natural world.

"The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future” might be too slow of a slow burn—and there’s not much to [its] characters beyond a few barely sketched traits.

An idiosyncratic proposition from the start, Alegría’s debut is a wonder precisely because, even as it borrows bits of genre pieces from here and there, the film firmly cements its director as a distinctive voice in Chilean cinema.

The power of Alegría’s feature debut is found not in dialogue or explication, but in the lyrical, magical realist qualities of folklore: disappointed mothers and fathers, sacred animals and cursed rivers, love and forgiveness.

A soft plea for human decency and healing, bound together by past mistakes literally haunting these characters.

The almost aimless plotting of events contributes to scenes that either lack in resonance or fade away into relative obscurity.

At the center of the story, both Mia Maestro and Leonor Varela give heart-breaking and contrasting performances.

A riveting tale of family drama and environment that provides a hopeful and thoughtful ending.