Vaca (2018): Cast & Plot

1875, Biscay during the Third Carlist War — In the heat of a grueling frontline, army sergeant Carmelo Mendiluze learns from a young errand boy, Ilegorri, that his neighbor Manuel Iriguíbel has joined the exhausted battalion. A cautious bond forms as Carmelo befriends the inexperienced Manuel, whose reputation as an expert aizcolari (log cutter) cannot mask the tremor of fear that grips him under fire. When Manuel panics and the battle ends, he crawls away from a trove of the dead, naked and smeared with the blood of a mortally wounded neighbor, Mendiluze. The escape goes unseen by all but a solitary cow, a quiet witness to a man’s crushing shame.