Death on a Factory Farm

HBO's documentary "Death on a Factory Farm" follows an animal activist named Pete in his undercover mission on a factory farm in Ohio known as being a place where many pigs are mistreated, tortured and killed in horrible ways. He secretly recorded several footages of animal abuses and sent those images to an institution who work with cases of animal abuse and to a prosecutor.

This is the first part of the documentary. The second part is the trial of the farm owners and one of the employees who acted in such barbarity. It's very interesting to see the aspects of a judgment and the points of view of the people who raise animals, the people who protect animals, lawyers and prosecutors, and the questions which we had to make to ourselves. Is there a way to kill an animal without cruelty? What is cruelty? Can Pete's images win a trial? Does he did the right thing by filming these horrific moments and not helped those poor animals? Personally I think that the employees and the owners of the farm should be convicted because what they did it was against the law, it was shocking and a total disrespect against the hog. The video footage of Pete (it's a fake name) used as evidence in the trial shows a hog hanging in the chain only because she was sick and wasn't useful for anything. Other scary scenes appear in the documentary and for those who can't watch violence against animals don't watch it because there are very disturbing scenes here. But if you are interesting in knowing what's have being made about animal protection's laws skip the first part and at least watch the trial.

The most important thing in this documentary is too know someone like Pete, who went undercover seven times in order to make people know what happens in farms and places where animals are mistreated. He's a lonely guy that knows that his mission is to protect those who cannot speak, the defenseless animals. It's a crusade that many people can't do it and wouldn't do it even if they could. But it's not just that. He also does that because it's his job, he's paid for it, anonymously but he get paid. To know that someone can take many risks and almost without any fear to get caught by "his farm bosses" and try to guarantee that the chickens and pigs won't be treated with cruelty is priceless. 10/10

When you hear about a documentary like this, you're probably expecting to be overloaded with nonstop visuals of horrific treatment to animals - and animal activists shouting familiar slogans. Well ... at least that was my expectation.

However, this show was quite a bit different.

It basically follows an animal activist who goes undercover at the Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio. His goal is to obtain video footage of alleged animal cruelty... and in particular, one type of act: hog hangings via chain. This act often takes 3 to 5 minutes to 'complete'.

But it doesn't stop there. The graphic footage we see during his 'undercover' op is only the first 30 minutes of this 95 minute show. What follows is the real-life trial that ensued. During the trial one begins to wonder: is the graphic footage enough to win? Is there any way to effectively defend against it?

The nail-biting blow-by-blow of the trial is fascinating to watch. Learning about what happens in a legal confrontation between two entirely different points of view - on this subject matter - was something I've never seen before. For that reason, I highly recommend watching this film. There's the animal rights folks, the livestock farmers ... and then there's the law. You'll learn how all three sides look at the same issue. If that sounds interesting, don't miss it.