Animale 4K 2024 Ultra HD 2160p

Camargue, France - Nejma trains hard to win the local bullfighting competition. When she is mauled after a celebration, she starts to notice disturbing changes. News of a rogue bull on the loose terrifies the community, killing young men.

User Review
Animale moves comfortably across several cinematic territories, which is largely to its benefit. The most obvious reference point is the western: the windswept marshland steppes of the Camargue provide a landscape not entirely unlike the mythic plains of the American frontier.

The film also immerses us in the daily lives of cattle herders and practitioners of the regional sport known as the Course Camarguaise - a tradition not so different from the cowboy culture of the American West, either in its labour or in its values.

One of the film's great strengths is precisely this sense of discovery. Director Emma Benestan brings to the screen a region rarely depicted in cinema and a professional and cultural environment that is equally unfamiliar to most audiences.

This is not, however, a documentary. The narrative centres on Najma, a young woman determined to enter the male-dominated world of the Camargue bull-running competitions, even if it means confronting the sport's politely paternalistic misogyny.

From that starting point, revealing too much would spoil the film's slow shift toward darker, stranger territory. The turning point comes one night when Najma, determined to prove her courage, wanders drunkenly alone into the plains where the bulls graze.

An hour later, what remains is a film with an unmistakable visual texture, a willingness to deploy modest special effects, and a setting whose cultural and geographical specificity becomes its strongest weapon.

One might regret - as is often the case with French director-driven genre cinema - that the supernatural elements serve largely as decorative flourishes rather than fully developed narrative engines. Yet here they feel slightly more controlled and better integrated than usual. The timeless traditions and evocative landscapes make the film's brush with magical realism feel almost inevitable.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (69.2 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Info Subtitles