BLOOD OF THE BEASTS
Narration Written by JEAN PAINLEVE
Narrated by GEORGES HUBERT and NICOLE LADMIRAL
Written and Directed by GEORGES FRANJU
AT THE GATES OF PARIS
On the outskirts of Paris, the vacant lots where poor children play
are scattered with unique relics of riches past.
Displayed and offered for the delight
of curio seekers, poets and strolling lovers
here, on the edge of city life, amid trucks and trains.
At Porte de Vanves is the Vaugiraud slaughterhouse.
Despite the taurine statues,
the municipal slaughterhouse specializes in the slaughter of horses.
IN HONOR OF EMILE DECROIX PROPONENT OF HORSE MEAT
The tools used vary according to the animal...
the rush, or reed...
the poleax...
the captive-bolt pistol, whose impact kills the animal instantly.
After being bled, the horse is hoisted up to complete the draining of blood.
It is then lowered for flaying.
Compressed air is pumped under the skin to make the task easier.
The feet are detached and removed.
The hooves will become fertilizer,
and the bones will be made into bone black
or ladies' toiletries.
The delicate task of flaying with a razor-sharp lancet
is not without danger.
While flaying a horse, Ernest Bruyet severed his femoral artery.
His right leg had to be amputated.
This black horse was slaughtered by Alfred Macquart,
a holder of the prestigious "Best Worker in France"diploma.
Auguste Macquart, his grandfather,
was a founding father of meatpacking at the turn of the last century.
On the outskirts of Paris,
the Ourcq canal and the Wheels of Fortune.
Porte de Pantin, the La Villette market.
The slaughterhouse is linked to the market by a bridge
to transfer the cattle.
In the deafening din of pneumatic hoists,
the slaughterers and scalders work
in the gray steam rising from the blood of the beasts.
Maurice Griselle, former French boxing champion.
Andre Brunier, one of the best poleaxers in the Villette.
Inserting the reed into the medullary canal
pierces and destroys the spinal cord, suppressing the animal's reflexes.
The pressing completes the draining of the blood,
most of which is collected in containers.
Gutters catch the overflow.
Disembowelment is performed while the hoist is raised.
The fatty scraps will be collected by nuns.
Henri Fournel can split an ox while the clock strikes noon.
To keep veal meat white, decapitation is used to drain all blood.
The dead animal still twitches, but they're only involuntary reflexes.
The heads are stamped to identify and count the cattle.
This isn't a chapel to St. John the Baptist, patron saint of butchers,
nor to his gentle lamb.
It's the auction block of the slaughterhouse.
The sheep are led by the "traitor"...
He knows the way, and his life will be spared.
The others follow obediently, bleating
like condemned men who sing yet know their song to be useless.
To be skinned, the sheep are "punched."
Years of this difficult task can lead to a cyst on the worker's wrist.
"I shall strike you without anger and without hate, like a butcher, "
wrote Baudelaire.
Without anger, without hate,
with the simple cheerfulness of killers who whistle or sing as they slit throats,
for they must earn their own daily bread and that of others
with the wages of a difficult and often dangerous profession.
The sea we see dancing
Along the bright bays
The silvery glints of the sea
Reflections changing in the rain
The sea
In the summer sky
The clouds like fleecy sheep
Seem angels on high
The sea
Shepherdess of infiinite blue
See
By the pond The tall, damp reeds
See
The white birds The rusting houses
The sea
The day is ending.
In the pen, the sheep, still agitated, will fall asleep in the silence.
They won't hear the gates of their prison closing,
nor the Paris-Villette train,
which sets off after nightfall for the countryside
to gather tomorrow's victims.