The Turin Horse Reviews
axadntpron
Super Reviewer
January 11, 2013
The Turin Horse offers all of the fun of burying your grandmother, without the comfort of having the rest of your family near. Bleak, full of mysterious beauty that is hard to put your finger on, and endlessly-bordering on obnoxiously-long. And once it is done one thing is for sure, you hope you never have to experience it again.
Bill D 2007
Super Reviewer
February 19, 2012
In my write-up on "Anatolia," I described it as dirge-like. "Turin Horse" is even more funereal. Whereas "Anatolia" depicted human society in tatters, "Turin Horse" contemplates the end of life itself, much as Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" did, a third dirge-like high-art film on the worldwide festival circuit in 2011. Why is the European male avant-garde so depressed as of late -- and why are their films so disappointing?
"The Turin Horse" is set in the late 19th century, in a very remote corner of Hungary. A middle-aged male peasant and his adult daughter live alone. Their only livestock is a horse. These three creatures go about their daily life with their heads down, performing one mundane task after another and eating one meal a day. The horse eats hay; the humans eat (with their hands) one boiled potato per day. Tarr has us watch them eat on several occasions. Rarely have humans been compared to livestock more effectively.
But something is very strange in this world. An enormous wind storm makes it almost impossible to go outdoors. The long opening sequence shows the man and horse struggling to travel along a muddy dirt road with the massive gale at their faces. Eventually they make it back to their hovel, where the daughter silently feeds them and gets them ready for bed. The next morning, the wind hasn't died down at all.
Lucky us, we get to watch these wretched creatures wordlessly go about their daily routines for a couple more hours (total running time of "Turin" is two-and-a-half hours) while a short, annoying piece of dissonant music plays ceaselessly on the soundtrack. It resembles the sound of sick cows whining (or over-educated male intellectuals whining about their lives lacking fulfillment). I think it plays about 50 times during the screening, adding to the Chinese-water-torture quality of the film. Also on the mind-numbing soundtrack: the incessant sound of the wind.
A couple things happen at the end of "Turin Horse" that break the monotony and provide some dramatic resolution. I won't give away the details, but there is a change in the weather finally -- not for the better.
Awkwardly wrapped around this maddeningly minimalist film (which is shot in black-and-white, incidentally) is a contemplation of Friedrich Nietzsche's famous breakdown in 1889 at about the age of 45 when he was visiting the Italian city of Turin.
As legend has it, the quasi-demonic philosopher witnessed a horse being brutally whipped by its owner. In a fit of rage and pathos, Nietzsche threw his arms around the horse, sobbing inconsolably. Unable to (or refusing to) regain lucidity, he was taken to a mental hospital and never returned to normal life. He remained in the daily care of relatives for the last 10 years of his life, considered to be mentally ill. For years, most thought his mental state was caused by syphilis, but that has been drawn into question recently.
Tarr didn't just title the film in a way to demonstrate this reference to Nietzsche, he also begins the film with a narration that briefly describes the philosopher's breakdown.
Tarr may not be a great artist, but he is an authentic one. (I would say the same of Ceylan and Trier.) Thus there are some interesting things to contemplate here. On one level, it seems that Tarr is experiencing some kind of break with bourgeois civilization in a way that reminds him of Nietzsche's experience.
On another level, it seems that Tarr feels that capitalist civilization is literally destroying life, a sentiment I certainly share, at least on some levels and at some times. But while there are interesting ideas behind the project, "Turin Horse" doesn't capture these ideas very effectively. Spending two hours watching livestock (human and otherwise) on a death march is not artistically enriching for me. I'd rather spend that two hours reading Nietzsche's "Antichrist."
It's quite the season for ambitious but disappointing high-art cinema in New York. On the heels of Nuri Ceylan's "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" comes the NY release of the highly avant-garde "The Turin Horse," from Hungarian bad boy Bela Tarr. The two films have a lot in common. They can now add to their long list of commonalities that they received a 5 rating from me.
In my write-up on "Anatolia," I described it as dirge-like. "Turin Horse" is even more funereal. Whereas "Anatolia" depicted human society in tatters, "Turin Horse" contemplates the end of life itself, much as Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" did, a third dirge-like high-art film on the worldwide festival circuit in 2011. Why is the European male avant-garde so depressed as of late -- and why are their films so disappointing?
"The Turin Horse" is set in the late 19th century, in a very remote corner of Hungary. A middle-aged male peasant and his adult daughter live alone. Their only livestock is a horse. These three creatures go about their daily life with their heads down, performing one mundane task after another and eating one meal a day. The horse eats hay; the humans eat (with their hands) one boiled potato per day. Tarr has us watch them eat on several occasions. Rarely have humans been compared to livestock more effectively.
But something is very strange in this world. An enormous wind storm makes it almost impossible to go outdoors. The long opening sequence shows the man and horse struggling to travel along a muddy dirt road with the massive gale at their faces. Eventually they make it back to their hovel, where the daughter silently feeds them and gets them ready for bed. The next morning, the wind hasn't died down at all.
Lucky us, we get to watch these wretched creatures wordlessly go about their daily routines for a couple more hours (total running time of "Turin" is two-and-a-half hours) while a short, annoying piece of dissonant music plays ceaselessly on the soundtrack. It resembles the sound of sick cows whining (or over-educated male intellectuals whining about their lives lacking fulfillment). I think it plays about 50 times during the screening, adding to the Chinese-water-torture quality of the film. Also on the mind-numbing soundtrack: the incessant sound of the wind.
A couple things happen at the end of "Turin Horse" that break the monotony and provide some dramatic resolution. I won't give away the details, but there is a change in the weather finally -- not for the better.
Awkwardly wrapped around this maddeningly minimalist film (which is shot in black-and-white, incidentally) is a contemplation of Friedrich Nietzsche's famous breakdown in 1889 at about the age of 45 when he was visiting the Italian city of Turin.
As legend has it, the quasi-demonic philosopher witnessed a horse being brutally whipped by its owner. In a fit of rage and pathos, Nietzsche threw his arms around the horse, sobbing inconsolably. Unable to (or refusing to) regain lucidity, he was taken to a mental hospital and never returned to normal life. He remained in the daily care of relatives for the last 10 years of his life, considered to be mentally ill. For years, most thought his mental state was caused by syphilis, but that has been drawn into question recently.
Tarr didn't just title the film in a way to demonstrate this reference to Nietzsche, he also begins the film with a narration that briefly describes the philosopher's breakdown.
Tarr may not be a great artist, but he is an authentic one. (I would say the same of Ceylan and Trier.) Thus there are some interesting things to contemplate here. On one level, it seems that Tarr is experiencing some kind of break with bourgeois civilization in a way that reminds him of Nietzsche's experience.
On another level, it seems that Tarr feels that capitalist civilization is literally destroying life, a sentiment I certainly share, at least on some levels and at some times. But while there are interesting ideas behind the project, "Turin Horse" doesn't capture these ideas very effectively. Spending two hours watching livestock (human and otherwise) on a death march is not artistically enriching for me. I'd rather spend that two hours reading Nietzsche's "Antichrist."
Max C
Super Reviewer
October 18, 2011
Nietzsche is never specifically mentioned again after the opening voice-over, but I decided that he must be important in the viewing or understanding of The Turin Horse, because it starts off with that story. Nietzsche, despite the amount of misunderstood teenagers you see in God Is Dead t-shirts, was a very life-affirming guy. His doctrine of Eternal Recurrence asked the reader the question would you live your life eternally, rather than die?, and the idea was if you said "yes!" then you were a winner, and if you said "oh dear God, no!" then you should probably re-evaluate the way you live. In a rather cunning way, the story above describes Nietzsche as a madman, and with the concluding we do not know what happened to the horse, Tarr decides to ask his audience "would you live your life eternally, rather than die?" using the horse and driver from the story above as his subject.
There's one passage in Nietzsche's Ecce Homo that comes to mind when watching the film: "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it . . . but love it." Appropriately then, The Turin Horse hardly moves forward, nor backwards, and as its detractors might note, does in fact feel like it takes eternity! Different scenes come slowly following the same ideas and basic composition, only the camera has moved to remind us that this is in fact a new day. Although I admire Tarr for being convicted enough in his ideas to actually do this, I completely understood the huge amount of people walking out of the theatres saying things like "Oh God, I'm over watching them eat potatoes!" At one stage, the characters decide to leave their isolated house and head up a hill, only to turn back again and this brings to mind Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, cementing Tarr's pessimism and the suspicion I had that these characters are meant to represent all of mankind. There is a character who is intentionally Nietzschean here, like there was in Werckmeister Harmonies, only here he's not violent like The Prince was, but more a pessimistic prophet. Tarr described him as "a sort of Nietzschean shadow", which confuses me given Nietzsche's optimism, but this hardly matters. For Tarr, optimism belongs to the insane, and repetition and nihilism remains for the rest of us.
The repetitive structure of the film is complimented by its overall simplicity and pureness: this is the most pure and yet difficult film I have ever seen. It is entirely suitable then for nihilistic parable; those leaving because they can't stand the repetition might add to Tarr's statement on mankind, The Turin Horse is a mirror into which we're meant to look and see a simplified version of ourselves. Post-apocalyptic, post-faith, post-belief, and post-optimism. Obviously the film's audience might not be too happy accepting this, I'm a pessimistic person but don't really agree with it. It's hard to deny though that he achieves everything he sets out to, with this pure, frequently beautiful and truly harrowing work. A conversation between the insane and reality, pessimism and optimism, even if it does seem cheeky that he responds to Nietzsche's response to nihilism with, well, nihilism.
The story goes: "In Turin on 3rd January, 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, the driver of a hansom cab is having trouble with a stubborn horse. Despite all his urging, the horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche comes up to the throng and puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse's neck, sobbing. His landlord takes him home, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan until he mutters the obligatory last words, and lives for another ten years, silent and demented, cared for by his mother and sisters. We do not know what happened to the horse."
Nietzsche is never specifically mentioned again after the opening voice-over, but I decided that he must be important in the viewing or understanding of The Turin Horse, because it starts off with that story. Nietzsche, despite the amount of misunderstood teenagers you see in God Is Dead t-shirts, was a very life-affirming guy. His doctrine of Eternal Recurrence asked the reader the question would you live your life eternally, rather than die?, and the idea was if you said "yes!" then you were a winner, and if you said "oh dear God, no!" then you should probably re-evaluate the way you live. In a rather cunning way, the story above describes Nietzsche as a madman, and with the concluding we do not know what happened to the horse, Tarr decides to ask his audience "would you live your life eternally, rather than die?" using the horse and driver from the story above as his subject.
There's one passage in Nietzsche's Ecce Homo that comes to mind when watching the film: "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it . . . but love it." Appropriately then, The Turin Horse hardly moves forward, nor backwards, and as its detractors might note, does in fact feel like it takes eternity! Different scenes come slowly following the same ideas and basic composition, only the camera has moved to remind us that this is in fact a new day. Although I admire Tarr for being convicted enough in his ideas to actually do this, I completely understood the huge amount of people walking out of the theatres saying things like "Oh God, I'm over watching them eat potatoes!" At one stage, the characters decide to leave their isolated house and head up a hill, only to turn back again and this brings to mind Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, cementing Tarr's pessimism and the suspicion I had that these characters are meant to represent all of mankind. There is a character who is intentionally Nietzschean here, like there was in Werckmeister Harmonies, only here he's not violent like The Prince was, but more a pessimistic prophet. Tarr described him as "a sort of Nietzschean shadow", which confuses me given Nietzsche's optimism, but this hardly matters. For Tarr, optimism belongs to the insane, and repetition and nihilism remains for the rest of us.
The repetitive structure of the film is complimented by its overall simplicity and pureness: this is the most pure and yet difficult film I have ever seen. It is entirely suitable then for nihilistic parable; those leaving because they can't stand the repetition might add to Tarr's statement on mankind, The Turin Horse is a mirror into which we're meant to look and see a simplified version of ourselves. Post-apocalyptic, post-faith, post-belief, and post-optimism. Obviously the film's audience might not be too happy accepting this, I'm a pessimistic person but don't really agree with it. It's hard to deny though that he achieves everything he sets out to, with this pure, frequently beautiful and truly harrowing work. A conversation between the insane and reality, pessimism and optimism, even if it does seem cheeky that he responds to Nietzsche's response to nihilism with, well, nihilism.
Hassan V
Super Reviewer
September 27, 2012
The withered faces, the brush of wind, the struggle of light and the potatoes, potatoes, potatoes create monotony that Tarrâ(TM)s marvellous one take shots guides through the viewers eyes, into their brain and forces them to contemplate. There are moments of grandeur in the mundane too every time Mihaly Vigâ(TM)s monstrous, lingering score drifts in like a weight on your concious.
It is a film relentless in itâ(TM)s forever grey filter of the world and is something Nietzsche would be proud of. The movie in fact starts with the story of Nietzsche seeing the a horse being beaten which put a halt on all his though and put him in bed till death. Evoking this Belá Tarr calls the end of his illustrious career by showing us the dire state of humanity that Nietzsche was lucky enough to see and tempting us to follow in his footsteps.
If there ever was fitting film to match Abbas Kiarostamiâ(TM)s quote âI donâ(TM)t mind if someone falls asleep while watching a film, as long as they dream about it afterâ? it is Belá Tarrâ(TM)s most recent and apparently swan song film. It is one of the most boring, dull and sluggishly paced film that you will have watched but it has more resonance than a 8.0 earthquake. It shatters your perceptions of humanity and forces you to rebuild, or convince yourself that life isnâ(TM)t totally meaningless.
The withered faces, the brush of wind, the struggle of light and the potatoes, potatoes, potatoes create monotony that Tarrâ(TM)s marvellous one take shots guides through the viewers eyes, into their brain and forces them to contemplate. There are moments of grandeur in the mundane too every time Mihaly Vigâ(TM)s monstrous, lingering score drifts in like a weight on your concious.
It is a film relentless in itâ(TM)s forever grey filter of the world and is something Nietzsche would be proud of. The movie in fact starts with the story of Nietzsche seeing the a horse being beaten which put a halt on all his though and put him in bed till death. Evoking this Belá Tarr calls the end of his illustrious career by showing us the dire state of humanity that Nietzsche was lucky enough to see and tempting us to follow in his footsteps.
November 20, 2011
opens with the story of the turin horse over a black screen, followed with "but of the horse we no nothing", what follows is what Bresson did for donkeys and jesus Tar does for horses and existential despair. The owners of the horse live in a barren field with only dead tree dotting the landscape, the spitting image of Smashing Pumpkins group photo. their lives consist of eating potatoes, dressing, undressing, and laying in bed silently. the horse given up on life refuses to eat or move. word comes first from a drunk, that the world is ending. a constant wind never lets up. and it goes on for 2 and half hour like that largely in silence and mostly darkness, til even the lights begin to die. this was probably the bleakest film Ive ever see, but tarr was friendly enough. "remember the sun is still shining outside" was the first thing he said. i talked to him a little in the cigarette area outside the theater, he just appeared out of nowhere looking for an ashtray, nice fella. anyway this was good, painterly, but too tedious, I get that was part of the point, "life sucks and then we all quietly fade into darkness", but I don't feel that to be true. That's what Tarr suggested we do with the film "do not analyze, see with your eyes, and feel with your heart", and life is more than potatoes and silence, even if it is all meaningless and doomed, Melancholia enforces this and was full of life in ways this film was full of nothingness. But for films about nothingness, monotony, and pointless struggle this is the best.
ray
April 25, 2013
Ich habe großartige Bilder verpasst. Atmosphärische Schwarz-Weiß Aufnahmen mit beeindruckenden Dollyfahrten. Einen Film, noch langsamer, als alles was Tarkovsky zu bieten hat. Tatsächlich wurde ich öfters an Chantal Akermans Jeanne Dielman" erinnert als an irgendeinen Tarkovsky Film. Diese monotone Eintönigkeit der täglichen Abläufe im Hause der Familie, deren Pferd später einmal Nietzsche in den Wahnsinn treiben sollte.
Vor lauter Eintönigkeit und Leere blieb mir leider auch der tiefere philosophische Sinn, sollte der Film überhaupt einen enthalten, verborgen. Zwar war ich begeistert vom den technischen Aspekten wie Kameraführung, Musik und der fast vollkommenen Absenz von Dialog (ehrlich, dieser Film ist fast ein Stummfilm) sowie von den ewig langen Einstellungen, aus denen der gesamte Film besteht (es sind kaum dreißig glaube ich gelesen zu haben) aber Tarr beweist sich als Meister des Unkommerziellen.
Oft bewegt sich der Film nur knapp am Rande der Langweiligkeit, ohne die selben meditativen Qualitäten wie Tarkovskys oder Malicks Werke zu zeigen. Sicher einer der langsamsten Filme die ich je gesehen habe.
Ich finde es gut, wenn sich Regisseure aufs visuelle Erzählen verstehen, Dialog und andere Mittel in den Hintergrund treten lassen, und sich auf das per se filmische konzentrieren, aber Das Turiner Pferd" fehlt ein wenig der tiefere Sinn. Zwar mag er visueller Poet und Philosoph sein, ähnlich wie der mittlerweile schon mehrmals genannte Tarkovsky, doch jener versteht es weit besser den Bildern durch Montage und gelegentliche Paceänderungen Sinn zu verleihen, während Tarr sich stur aufs Abfilmen in neo-realistischer Tradition konzentriert.
Das Turiner Pferd" zeugt von Tarrs Überzeugung als Filmemacher alle Zeit der Welt zu haben um seine Geschichte" zu erzählen und den Dingen auf den Grund zu Gehen. Warum er dann nicht tatsächlich den Dingen auf den Grund geht, sondern still und stumm die Düsternis einziehen lässt sei dahingestellt.
PS: Ungarisch ist die passende Sprache für einen Schwarzweißfilm.
Großes habe ich über den ungarischen Großmeister gehört. Vor allem die Vergleiche mit Andrei Tarkovsky haben mich aufhorchen lassen, und so machte ich mich nach eineinhalb Jahren, seit mir dieser Film das erste Mal bei den European Film Awards untergekommen war, endlich ans Werk, das Werk von Béla Tarr zu erforschen.
Ich habe großartige Bilder verpasst. Atmosphärische Schwarz-Weiß Aufnahmen mit beeindruckenden Dollyfahrten. Einen Film, noch langsamer, als alles was Tarkovsky zu bieten hat. Tatsächlich wurde ich öfters an Chantal Akermans Jeanne Dielman" erinnert als an irgendeinen Tarkovsky Film. Diese monotone Eintönigkeit der täglichen Abläufe im Hause der Familie, deren Pferd später einmal Nietzsche in den Wahnsinn treiben sollte.
Vor lauter Eintönigkeit und Leere blieb mir leider auch der tiefere philosophische Sinn, sollte der Film überhaupt einen enthalten, verborgen. Zwar war ich begeistert vom den technischen Aspekten wie Kameraführung, Musik und der fast vollkommenen Absenz von Dialog (ehrlich, dieser Film ist fast ein Stummfilm) sowie von den ewig langen Einstellungen, aus denen der gesamte Film besteht (es sind kaum dreißig glaube ich gelesen zu haben) aber Tarr beweist sich als Meister des Unkommerziellen.
Oft bewegt sich der Film nur knapp am Rande der Langweiligkeit, ohne die selben meditativen Qualitäten wie Tarkovskys oder Malicks Werke zu zeigen. Sicher einer der langsamsten Filme die ich je gesehen habe.
Ich finde es gut, wenn sich Regisseure aufs visuelle Erzählen verstehen, Dialog und andere Mittel in den Hintergrund treten lassen, und sich auf das per se filmische konzentrieren, aber Das Turiner Pferd" fehlt ein wenig der tiefere Sinn. Zwar mag er visueller Poet und Philosoph sein, ähnlich wie der mittlerweile schon mehrmals genannte Tarkovsky, doch jener versteht es weit besser den Bildern durch Montage und gelegentliche Paceänderungen Sinn zu verleihen, während Tarr sich stur aufs Abfilmen in neo-realistischer Tradition konzentriert.
Das Turiner Pferd" zeugt von Tarrs Überzeugung als Filmemacher alle Zeit der Welt zu haben um seine Geschichte" zu erzählen und den Dingen auf den Grund zu Gehen. Warum er dann nicht tatsächlich den Dingen auf den Grund geht, sondern still und stumm die Düsternis einziehen lässt sei dahingestellt.
PS: Ungarisch ist die passende Sprache für einen Schwarzweißfilm.
March 24, 2013
powerful .
Haunting film that stays with you - have now watched the DVD 6 times -
powerful .
March 20, 2013
All I request is that reviewers "don't criticise what [they] don't understand".
March 5, 2013
Nothing happens. It's two hours of potato porn and not a single damn thing happens.
SarfarazAbbasi
January 25, 2013
The opening of the film a man narrates an earlier short-story of Nietzsche, while in Turin (Italy) one day in 1889, he witnessed a cart driver beating a horse and threw himself, weeping, on the animal's neck ,according to legend, the event led mental breakdown from which Nietzsche never recovered.
Tarr says that he wanted to show the heaviness of the life; plus the daily basic routines to fetch water from well under harsh weather, in someone's life. After watching interview of Tarr, I came up with view that if we were to ascertain segments of life's philosophical ups-and-downs then, there are countless such issues out there, to dramatize them and debate over their existence in the universe.
If Tarr is so much anxious to show the world about daily fetching of water from well and how hard it can be for someone, then he should research on this and come to Thar (Sindh, Pakistan) one of the largest deserts in the world, where the dwellers go out each day in search of water.
These movies are not aimed at general/average audience, for they contain real upheavals of human-life and tragic resounding of misery suffered at state of poverty and ever changing environment (that Tarr wants to explain).
The Turin Horse (A torinói ló Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky,. Starring János Derzsi, Erika Bók. Film was co-written by Tarr and his László Krasznahorkai. The film is shot in black-and-white. The film premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, and earned Jury Grand Prix. The film was official Hungarian entry for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language, but could not make it to final list. This is supposedly the last film by Tarr, as he claims in his interview with NY Times.
The opening of the film a man narrates an earlier short-story of Nietzsche, while in Turin (Italy) one day in 1889, he witnessed a cart driver beating a horse and threw himself, weeping, on the animal's neck ,according to legend, the event led mental breakdown from which Nietzsche never recovered.
Tarr says that he wanted to show the heaviness of the life; plus the daily basic routines to fetch water from well under harsh weather, in someone's life. After watching interview of Tarr, I came up with view that if we were to ascertain segments of life's philosophical ups-and-downs then, there are countless such issues out there, to dramatize them and debate over their existence in the universe.
If Tarr is so much anxious to show the world about daily fetching of water from well and how hard it can be for someone, then he should research on this and come to Thar (Sindh, Pakistan) one of the largest deserts in the world, where the dwellers go out each day in search of water.
These movies are not aimed at general/average audience, for they contain real upheavals of human-life and tragic resounding of misery suffered at state of poverty and ever changing environment (that Tarr wants to explain).
February 11, 2013
Repetitive routine of the father and daughter on the last six days of their world was overlong, boring and haunting but not all uninteresting. The production setting, including wind, and cinematography were great.
January 10, 2013
Bela Tarr may be the greatest living filmmaker.
This is a MESMERIZING film.
Bela Tarr may be the greatest living filmmaker.
December 28, 2012
Pretentious and tedious. I love the works of Nietzsche but although this movie manage to recreate the despair of the philosopher thought, it reaches boredom at its best.
John W.
December 28, 2012
Overrated and astonishingly dull. If Newt Gingrich is a stupid person's idea of a smart person, this is an idiot's idea of an intelligent film. Two stars is as generous as I can be. Really disappointing.
September 29, 2011
A masterwork of film craft and implicitness through such, and almost certainly among the most exhausting cinema experiences of all time.
