Blood of the Beasts (1949)

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.While it is surprising that the animals being slaughtered are horses and not cows or pigs, this no less takes away from the power of the film. If anything, it might add to it (people tend to be more emotionally attached to horses than cows). There is no better way to explain the inside of an abattoir than to show it.I guess if I had to complain about anything, it is that the narrator refers to the horses as "victims" and seems to have a generally unfavorable view of the whole business. Documentaries should be neutral when possible and not include language that pushes the viewer one way or another. Is it bad to slaughter animals? Is it okay but the methods are just wrong? Or maybe it is not wrong at all, but we have become disconnected from it and therefore more sensitive to its foreign nature.I am not going to judge a slaughterhouse, at least not in this review. But I do fear that as beautifully shot as this brief piece was, it did not give audiences a fair vantage point from which to draw conclusions.

"Blood of the Beasts" by Georges Franju is among the most horrifying documentaries I have ever seen.Its unflinching depiction of animal butchery will certainly upset many potential viewers.The film is set in a Parisian slaughterhouse.We see various butchers slaughtering horses,cows,calves and sheep.This film is very graphic without being exploitative,though-Franju simply documents the activities in a slaughterhouse circa 1949.It's very well done-the images are strong,often disturbing-and the camera acts almost as a neutral observer,seeing all.This is a good film,but I only recommend it with a strong warning about its content.So if you are squeamish don't watch this short.8 out of 10.

In the periphery of Paris, the fate of horses, cows and other animals in a slaughterhouse is detailed in this short documentary. My first comment about this disgusting short is that fortunately it is not in color. I believe that there are two possible views of this short: technically, my opinion is that it is perfect. The shootings of Paris, the cinematography, the camera, the skill of the workers, in this regard everything is perfectly shown. However, the theme is simply awful and of a completely bad taste. I do not know if George Franju was vegetarian, but probably his intention showing the slaughter of animals, inclusive of an offspring, was to make the viewers become vegetarian. I believe most of the pseudo-intellectual readers will not like my review, but that was my impression of this documentary. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Sangue das Bestas" ("The Blood of the Beasts")

An astonishing document.A documentary shot with a surrealist aesthetic; images of unimaginable horror and violence--all perfectly real and unstaged--filmed with a languid and beautiful poetry. The images in this documentary about the slaughterhouse--the "abattoir," in the language of the narrator--are filmed with an almost cavalier, deadpan, unflinching clarity. The images of the lingering struggles of a decapitated calf; the satiny musculature exposed beneath the skin of a butchered cow, and the horrible but poetic moment when we see that the heart still beats beneath the sinews; the bored whistle of the beret-capped worker tapping the steaming spray of a horse's heart's blood; and then, the canal-concealing camera angle that shows us a barge bisecting a field of grass: "Blood of the Beasts" is a breathtaking celebration of the visual philosophy of surrealism.