Common sense says that all art seeks to discover and comprehend the human condition. What distinguishes us as humans? How do we alter from our fellow animal companions? Can it be our proclivity for self-reflexivity, our power to acknowledge our place in the universe, and our endless wish to expand our knowledge? Perhaps. Yet, it's my firm conviction that it is our inherent drive for empathy that is what renders us truly humane. It is this element of our consciousness that director Kathleen Lowson wants us to discover, and her film Cry from the Innocent: The Voices That Can't Speak is often a proactive approach, urging us to ask and answer the issue: who are you wearing?
Choosing a unique soul perspective, the film can be a psychological and spiritual study with the human condition emphasizing the cruelty, absurdity, and frivolity in the modern fur trade. This unnecessary practice is really a symptom, an indicator that as a species, we're in need of elevating our consciousness, expanding it in ways that all life forms are given the dignity, love, and respect they deserve. Lowson impresses upon the viewer that "when we disconnect through the suffering of sentient beings, we disconnect from my own suffering." This is the statement that merits deep reflection, as her words could not ring more true.
The thing that makes this film so accessible as well as in the approach could it be won't employ shocking and gruesome imagery to talk its message; rather, it unveils view of these innocent animals while providing empowering quotes from evolutionary leaders including the Dalai Lama. It asks the viewer difficult questions, inspiring us to delve beyond our egos and to the deeper elements of our psyches, to demand why it is that we being a species have tolerated the abuse and slaughter of animals inside the name of favor and temporary economic gain. It illuminates the point that we've got little to achieve from such deplorable acts, and so, so much to shed. Namely, when we cannot recognize this and irreparable damage that occurs when we so callously end the life of an innocent, not just to the pet, but to the own humanity, how should we aspire to produce true peace and modify in this world?
Lowson delivers this message having a conscious, gentle, and philosophical touch. She presents the viewer together with the disturbing reality that countless animals must endure from certain humans. The film begins with the Canadian seal "hunt," the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals on the globe. Appallingly, it can be subsidized by the Canadian government, bringing Lowson to encourage us to boycott the Canadian seafood industry. By empowering an industry that profits from death and cruelty to animals, we're only perpetuating a stagnation with the human spirit, as an alternative to stimulating its growth and evolution.
She also gives light the deplorable and unspeakably repugnant conditions in China, where cats and dogs are killed for fur to make trinkets and trim on clothing. It might be surprising with a readers, but Lowson stresses that even items labelled as "faux fur" or "synthetic fur" might actually be cat and dog fur. Depicting these beautiful creatures crammed by the dozen into stifling cages, these images are heartbreaking and hard to observe, but it's crucial that we open our eyes towards the horrific crimes that occur in these fur factories. Lowson calls on each of us to question why we put money into China, and also to demand that laws be placed in position to guard these vulnerable and defenceless animals who will be unable to speak for themselves.
Over 50 million animals, from baby seals, dogs, cats, foxes, minks, rabbits, raccoons, along with other innocent creatures are killed from the name of profit and fashion. These types of the globalization in the fur trade, it is virtually impossible to learn the countries by which fur items are made. Even when a fur garment's label says it was made in a European country, it's quite possible that this animals were raised and slaughtered elsewhere; in a most of the cases, while on an unregulated Chinese fur farm. These facts describe the urgency of establishing laws that will end these acts of cruelty, abuse, and murder. Enough time to evolve our consciousness has become, and Cry of the Innocent: The Voices that Can't Speak can be a monumental film and call to action that is a magnificent contribution to the animal rights movement.
