ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, in dealing with contemporary prevalent, slow violence against nonhuman animals, the film medium is more effective when perceived as an agent of redemption. The documentary genre in particular is capable of helping nonhuman animals break away from being trapped in the vicious loop of the capitalist production chain through its visual, investigative, and other cinematic apparatus. In developing the idea of documentary redemption and hope, I first trace, by way of Nicole Shukin’s work, the entanglements of animals in the early film industry, where animals were exploited materially by the film industry and conceptually exploited for the advancement of a capitalist manufacturing process. Here, I see filmic redemption as self-redemptive: to redress/make amends the malicious human–animal relationship, especially with the advent of digital film. The second idea of redemption is examined through animal activist documentaries: what narrative and aesthetic strategies do filmmakers use to prompt post-cinematic change or action? What affects are appropriate for an animal advocacy film? In recognizing the potential negatives of documentaries to traumatize, terrorize, and numb the audience by cataloging the cruel reality of animal violence and suffering, I contend that the documentary genre materializes its activist potential when it is conceived as a positive and affective technological apparatus of hope and aspiration. The following films (mostly documentaries) from multiple localities will be discussed: The Plastic Cow (India), Three Flower/Tri-Color (China), four Asian Black Bear rescue documentaries from Australia, China, and Vietnam, and finally, The Lost Sea (Taiwan).
