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Interesting comparison:  The documentary Roger and Me was criticized because
of the slaughter of a rabbit for meat.  In fact, the lady who sold and
killed the rabbits had been relegated to a sort of outlaw peasant lifestyle
after the plant closure.
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Bet MacArthur writes:
"       Only after he is certain the sheep is dead does Gombo give it to his
wife to dress (skin, clean, and butcher). Moments later the fresh meat is in
the stewpot. The family's respect for the sheep, and for their houseguest,
builds all the way through."
 
Though I haven't seen the film in question, it is notable how often the
 virtually
sacrificial death of an animal pops up in stories centered on peasant or
tribal
life: there are pigs killed in films like TREE OF THE WOODEN CLOGS and (if
 memory
serves) Bertolucci's 1900, for example.  As a simple fact of rural peasant
life,
such scenes are to be expected--sometimes they almost seem obligatory.  With
the
hope that all due efforts were made to mimimize suffering of the actual
animal,
such films do serve (at least) to remind us were those nicely shrink-wrapped
packages in the supermarket came from (a point made rather bluntly by
Nicholas
Roeg in WALKABOUT).
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)