Director: Costa Botes
Rating: (E) ★★★★
REVIEWED BY JEREMY QUINN
Sitting squarely in the ‘‘unexpectedly delightful and uplifting’’ category of farming-related documentaries, Costa Botes’ When the Cows Come Home (Rialto) is not only a must-see for animal lovers but indeed for anyone with the slightest interest in the vagaries of the human condition.
Centred on herdsman Andrew Johnstone, who looks after the cows on the family farm in Cambridge in the Waipa District, it begins by simply following him as he interacts and communicates with his herd, all the while dispensing his thoughts on bovine behaviour and the farming life, which always seem to be reaching for some greater truth.
He appears a man very much in his happy place, but we soon find out it wasn’t always this way, the film backtracking to fill us in on his eventful and often difficult life, from being a rebellious teen at a Catholic boys’ school in 1970s Auckland to his creative ventures as a musician, artist, radio broadcaster and journalist to name but a few.
He’s refreshingly honest when talking about the ups and downs of his journey, including his bipolar diagnosis, which accounts for his mood swings and his tendency to move from one project to the next without ever really committing to one thing, at least until a late-in-life return home where he seems to have rediscovered his true calling.
Botes is a skilled and experienced documentarian, and the film is beautifully shot, impressively structured, insightful and touching without being exploitative or manipulative, and dare I say it, inspirational.
