That was an excellent one.

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Early on, Earthlings, a documentary film by Shaun Monson, presents striking images of Nazi genocidal atrocities towards Jews, which elicit a curious cognitive dissonance in the viewer's mind - certainly the Jews were cruelly "treated like animals", but on this occasion we are moved to ask a different question: should even animals be treated this way? Or did the Nazi treatment of Jews stem in fact from the socially accepted reduction of animals to mere objects? From there on, it goes on to discuss the extent of modern society's pervasive speciesism, successively covering five expanses: Pets, Food, Clothes, Entertainment and Science. The ordering of this sequence is cunning and effective, and it helps Monson make his case about the endemic nature of speciesism in our society.Earthlings speaks to our innate sense of compassion. Something that is there inside all of us, but needs a reawakening. It is a movie that examines our spiritual conscience, personal evolution and so much more. I did have to prepare myself before I watched it mentally not to cry through the entire movie. I managed to get by with tears welling up in my eyes, and some trickling down my face, but that was unavoidable. If you have at least a bit of a heart within you, this movie is going to make you cringe at times and evoke some serious emotion, but that is not a good enough reason not to see it. I'm not going to attempt to describe the ghastly scenes in Earthlings. There were parts I missed because I had to turn away. At other times I acted like a little kid watching a horror film, covering my face with my hands, only watching what could slip through the cracks between my fingers. But this is no horror movie. Earthlings is real. Yes, it is inconvenient to find this out. Yes, it is going to make you rethink your ways, and yes, it may lead you to make some major changes in your life, but that is what evolution of the human being and spirit is all about.As a production, Monson's Earthlings is a meticulously crafted work, featuring narration by Joaquin Phoenix, a moodily effective musical score by Moby, and rare footage from inside the animal factory farming industry that must have been difficult to acquire, giving it the right atmosphere and the right facts to really drive the message home.Earthlings forcefully, sometimes disturbingly, reminds us of an essential character of our consciousness, something about ourselves that our culture often dismisses: compassion and empathy. Along the way it shows and tells some inconvenient truths that most of us would probably prefer to avoid, laying bare a mass hypocrisy that we mindlessly accept. Earthlings shows us what is right there to see, if we would only look directly and honestly.

After seeing this I better understood the horrors men inflict on each other. Each film section - animal domestication, food, clothing, etc. - illustrates the theme of men's boundless arrogance and entitlement. There is an insanity in the workers directly involved, how could there not be? I felt compassion for them. There is second global insanity of humans not looking which I also understand. The scale of this suffering can not be taken in. Not only do we ignore the suffering, we take our sustenance from it and adorn ourselves in it. It makes the callousness to the genocide, starvation, and suffering of our fellow human beings understandable.No talking heads, statistics, historical context. It makes its point with undercover, raw footage of the animals in the factory system. It is nearly unbearable and not appropriate for children.

Well to be honest , this documentary made me cringe in my seat and cry and saddened at parts where animals are tortured. It outlines the way in which animals are exploited in multiple nations for food,product testing etc, including where I reside (considering majority of vegans come from India).You may look at this documentary from the view as a critic or a sympathetic person, but the fact remains that we are destroying the natural equilibrium of nature around us. (No mention of poaching in this particular documentary as that also is cruel and selfish by us "humane" humans. )We can always change.. change for good and this particular documentary would make us think hard and analyze how we humans are part of a society which destroys other societies in order to just spend our lives on planet earth.Being an Indian made me default to vegetarian diet, but as I grew up I experimented with my diet and switched to white meat as I wanted to bulk up and was into bodybuilding. I was frustrated with eating vegan food and gaining bulk. Perhaps I was naive by considering that eating meat would do me good.! But now I won't and not at the cost of inhumane behavior and torture of animals . It may not be a revolutionary change but every drop added builds an ocean.

While I do strongly believe that we need to make serious changes to our relationship with the other living creatures on this planet, I cannot respect any argument that is constructed with such a remarkable disregard for logic. The reckless abandon with which the narrative was constructed was far more shocking than any of the images presented, and served only to undermine this important message and lead the viewer to question the veracity of content that had previously been accepted as truth. The most offensive chapter for me was the 'investigation' of animal use in science. The narrative rests upon the notion that anyone who is not a vegan activist is complicit in holocaust-level cruelty, and that we tolerate this complicity for "trivial and pointless" gains. Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Heart Disease/Stroke, Diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, Hepatitis C, Birth Defects, Epilepsy, Bio-terrorism victims, Spinal Cord Injuries and Cystic Fibrosis are all significantly more treatable as a direct result of scientific research involving animals. According to the filmmakers these improvements to the human condition are "trivial and pointless". Shame on them. Shame on anyone who tolerates such willful stupidity. Perhaps one day our scientists will invent a time machine so you can go back to the dark ages - it's clearly where you would like our civilisation to remain.