Cheap EARTHLINGS (DVD) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of EARTHLINGS

Heartbreaking
This is the saddest movie I've ever seen. Phoenix's somber voice and the tragic, graphic images and music make for a very surreal experience while watching this documentary. It is saddening but ultimately it is determined and you will come away feeling the need to make a change for justice and equality between our close-knit earthlings.

---

A mix of the highest and lowest sentiments of man
The movie starts with a warning for those with weak stomachs about disturbing graphic images. This is not an idle caution, at least 60 minutes of this 95 minute film would be enough to ruin anyones lunch. The film is broken into five subject sections above and beyond the intro and recap: Pets, Food, Clothing, Entertainment, Science. If you are too tenderhearted to see the gore or want to show this film to children, try watching the first and last 15 minutes of the film. <
> <
>Philosophically the message of the movie mimics a quote from "The Outermost House" by Henry Beston who wrote, "We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

---

Provocative, Educational, Inspirational
It would be easy for a review to focus entirely on this documentary's visuals. For they are overwhelming. I suspect some persons even would scorn the documentary for "subjecting" us to these images, at least so many of them. But I think this would be misguided. For, with only a few exceptions, the documentary does not use its images in a way that's sensationalist. They merely document the conditions to which many animals are subjected. The problem, I think, is that we -- as a society -- actively avoid looking at any images documenting our treatment of unwanted pets, animals raised for meat, animals used for entertainment (e.g., circus), and animals used in experiments. Given this, Earthlings is simultaneously overwhelming and overdue. By itself, this is enough to recommend watching the film. However, the documentary is much more than this. Its creators obviously are attempting to provoke us to think. This is apparent within the first minute, as its prologue introduces its viewers to core moral principles that have defined the animal liberation movement. And it does this wonderfully. Its ability to articulate these principles clearly and concisely would make this film great supplemental material for any course covering its topics (I plan to show Earthlings in my community college applied ethics class when it examines Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation.") This prologue frames the film's visuals as they document our treatment of unwanted pets, animals raised for meat, animals used for entertainment, and animals used in experiments. It does this so well that rarely does a minute pass without the film challenging us to question some of the fundamental assumptions seemingly guiding our present treatment of these animals. This point is punctuated at the film's end, which challenges us to rethink our understanding of animals, our relationship to them, and our co-existence on earth. In the end, the film is provocative in the best sense I can image. It does not merely ask us to memorize its concepts. It beautifully immerses its philosophical content within its medium (Through the wonderful harmony of its visuals, Moby's subtly haunting music, and Joaquin Phoenix's minimalist, yet impassioned narration) in a way that challenges us to rethink how we live our lives. Many are likely to be disturbed by this challenge (As a life-long meat eater, I understand how difficult it can be to respond to this challenge). But it is doing nothing more or less than educating us! While the film is not perfect, and it does seem to be guilty of some pseudoscience -- especially with its seemingly hyperbolic denials of the knowledge acquired through vivisection -- those of us who are saddened by the educational opportunities missed each and every day on television and film are likely to find Earthlings an inspirational reminder of such media's educational capacities.