The Turin Horse

„Bela Tarr takes his followers back to»Satantango - back to the dull monotony of rural peasant life, repeated in a series of slow, uneventful and characteristically color-bereft long takes - before the big fade to black in The Turin Horse, which folds an apocalyptically bleak statement about the futility of it all into what is reportedly the Magyar master's last film. Though ripe for metaphorical interpretation, the slender setup, about the fate of a horse seen beaten in the streets, gives arthouse auds little to cling to, and will provide institutional and fest programmers a test-of-wills head-scratcher for their calendars.

In an unusually cutesy bit of opening narration, intoned with all the gravitas of a Lutheran church sermon, Tarr and longtime screenwriting collaborator Laszlo Krasznahorkai reference an apocryphal story dating back to 1889 in which Nietzsche witnessed a cabman abusing his disobedient horse in public. Moved by the incident, Nietzsche intervened, throwing his arms around the animal's neck in sympathy. History tells of Nietzsche's fate, but »of the horse we know nothing« - an oversight Tarr ostensibly seeks to rectify here.

It is a false question, no more enlightening in the grand scheme of things than wondering what became of George Washington's cherry tree; Tarr is not so much interested in the horse as he is in the carter and the conditions that provoked the man's brutality. The Nietzschean story merely serves as entry into six days in the lives of cart driver Ohlsdorfer (Janos Derzsi), his steed and the salt-of-the-earth granddaughter (Erika Bok) who shares his hovel. The opening minutes, in which old Ohlsdorfer determinedly steers his world-weary beast through raging winds back home while cellos and similarly intense strings swarm on the soundtrack, are as action-packed as The Turin Horse gets.”