In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic and
sludgy with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the
forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and
over and over again, the stun operator at Mr. Milo’s slaughterhouse:
reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders,
wherever that may take him. It’s important to calm the cows, especially
now that they seem so unsettled. One runs headlong into the side of a
barn, 22 more hurl themselves off the side of a cliff. Bronco Gil, their
foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar, Edgar Wilson does not.
But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner
of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness.