Holy Cow

A family’s strange jour­ney, which starts from buy­ing and rais­ing a cow, is doc­u­ment­ed by direc­tor Imam Hasanov. Tak­ing place in a small vil­lage in Azer­bai­jan, the sto­ry is told pri­mar­i­ly through the per­spec­tive of affa­ble patri­arch Tipdig. The reward of the pur­chase is poten­tial­ly huge for this pover­ty-striken fam­i­ly, but the risk, it tran­spires, is even higher.

Due to the reli­gious con­no­ta­tions of pur­chas­ing an ani­mal not native to the vil­lage, sev­er­al of the elder mem­bers of the vil­lage wish for Tipdig to be ban­ished from the com­mu­ni­ty. In addi­tion to this, he suf­fers inter­nal pres­sure from his wife to spend the mon­ey on more con­crete invest­ments. The cow is a win­dow to a more pros­per­ous way of life – he pins a pic­ture of the cow on a wall as if it were a Lam­borgh­i­ni or an idolised celebri­ty, only for his wife to cov­er it up with a large sheet.

We gain an insight to both the fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty through the very un-intru­sive style of film­ing. Hasanov employs sev­er­al slow pans and long sta­t­ic shots to remain pas­sive in the doc­u­men­tary, with no inter­views with the res­i­dents of the vil­lage. This allows for the glo­ri­ous land­scape to shine through with a gor­geous, hushed tran­quil­li­ty. The des­o­late shots that frame the char­ac­ters pack an emo­tion­al punch too, espe­cial­ly at the low­est dra­mat­ic ebb where we see our cow-buy­ing hero sat alone at a table while his for­mer friends refuse to eat with him.

Although the premise of this film at first may seem com­i­cal, it is in fact a sin­cere and mov­ing tale. Our hero’s love for the cow (or Madon­na as he names her) pro­vides a sim­ple and heart-warm­ing res­o­lu­tion that, despite our dis­con­nec­tion to rur­al cus­toms and lifestyles of the region, allows us to relate to the motives and deci­sion mak­ing we see. Things wind down in the lat­ter stages, but the doc­u­men­tary clos­es with a love­ly grace note as Tipdig’s kind­ness means that he’s able to get the last laugh. It’s a cli­mac­tic dis­play of human­i­ty typ­i­cal of our hero and proves why he is deserv­ing of what tru­ly is a Holy Cow.