[Film Review] Anonymous Animals (2020)

Cinema has always provided an outlet to deliver a message to the audience and drive home the importance of the subject at hand. If done with integrity and a purpose driven by a cause of passion, then the outcome can potentially become something very powerful and poignant.

Baptiste Rouveure’s experimental horror film, Anonymous Animals / Les Animaux Anonymes, provides the audience with a disturbingly sentimental look at the treatment of animals by the hands of humans and what the horrific outcomes would be if we lived in a world where the reality was the other way round. 

Isolated, alone and frightened, one man wakes up to find himself partially naked and chained by his throat to a tree in the middle of the woods. His demeanour shows his knowledge that he is about to serve a purpose as he brazenly shies away from the nearby road and instead seeks refuge behind a tree when any moving vehicle approaches. Regardless of his efforts to stay hidden, there is something already aware of his position and ready to take him to the next step on his journey. Revealing itself from a pick-up truck with shotgun in hand, is a creature that has the body of a humanoid and yet the head is that of a deer… it quickly becomes evident that the animal has come for the man and the tension suggests the fate that lies ahead is set to be catastrophic.

Baptiste created Anonymous Animals with a very clear message to deliver, and therefore keeps the film short and sharp, shanking into the misery early on and allowing the film to continue its sad depravity for its short run time of just over one hour. When trailers for this film were first released, some outlets said it was akin to the bloody and violent films of the New French Extremity movement, and although similarities of the same vein can be drawn, you shouldn’t expect to head into anything that is similar to a film from that sub-genre. Even though it is brutal and unflinching at moments, there is sombre melancholy tone at the heart of this film, one that serves as a reminder to the viewer that humans are cruel, disgusting and continuously destroying lives to satisfy our own hunger. 

Anonymous Animals poses the question of how we would feel if the treatment of animals that we so carry out purveying everyday was switched and the animals treated us in the same way. Seeing humans drawn to the slaughter, cowering in the corner desperately seeking an exit route from the death they know that awaits drastically reminds the viewer that this is an everyday occurrence across the world when it comes to the meat industry. Innocent and unsuspecting animals led to their deaths, with a knowledge that something awful is about to happen to them, yet not privy to the full details of what awaits. Witnessing a human in that state of sheer terror really shows us just how frightening and confusing it must be for animals that are put in this situation. 

Although not quite as brutal or violent as expectations made from the trailer alone, Anonymous Animals is a horror film about humans and how we are single-handedly destroying beautiful creatures to feed our need for consumption and entertainment. The animals that are featured on the humanoid creatures aren’t just pigs and cows, our automatic thinking pathway when it comes to animals harmed; we are reminded of all the ways humans use and abuse animals for our own selfish gain. Horses for racing, dogs for fighting, bulls for breeding, foxes for hunting and the list of exploited animals goes on. 

This is a haunting and devastating film that feels brave in its approach to immerse the human viewer in the everyday depravities that we see as commonplace. Disturbingly real, it is a film that will leave a bitter taste in your mouth as it serves as a reminder that humans are truly the most vicious and selfish creatures to exist in the world. Anonymous Animals forces us to confront our abhorrent treatment of animals, leaving us with nothing but the realisation that we are the true horror. 

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