From our series Look what we found in the Drafts folder.
Late on Boxing Day, which most Europeans and most Americans finally understand as the day when stuff gets put into boxes - and not as the day prize fighters are let out again after a peaceful Christmas holiday.
We still don't do TV and saw this at friends who do.
Despite the utter absence of snow in most of the country, Christmas on German TV has lots of soothing winter snow. The same goes for mountains. The channel running in the background at our friends is showing a documentary about mountain farming.
We see the farmer himself, inside a barn, adeptly maneuvering a fire engine red gondola. He is sitting inside the gondola and uses what appear to be joysticks. Big hydraulic arms pick up masses of hay in a single swoop and drop them through a hole down onto the feed floor where the cows are.
Cut.
We now see a woman, his wife, with a well-worn pitchfork lifting hay over the iron bar enclosure into the troughs of the happy cows.
Next, we see her push a small mountain of hay, about waist high, further down the aisle of the cement floor and continue to feed the happy cows at that end.
Cut again.
The happy farmer up in his gondola drops another load.** The wife pushes.
Are they trying to convey that a lot of manual labor is done by the woman while the man enjoys the gadget? There is no mention of this in the voice-over comment, unless we have missed a beat.
To be fair, a few minutes later, we see the male do some manual work. The camera shows him fill a pot with snow to melt for water.
** You got that? Great.
No comments:
Post a Comment