The film in question is Bela Tarr's latest (and apparently last) feature "The Turin Horse" -- Hungary's entry in last year's Foreign Film Oscar, it is much too severe to have made the final five nominees, but it is a fitting coda to this director's difficult oeuvre (I love that word). The jumping-off point is an incident in 1889 Turin involving the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche after he witnessed a pack horse being severely beaten. After throwing his arms around the horse's neck to protect it, he had a mental collapse from which he never recovered. What happened to the horse? The film posits that he ended up in the employ of a Hungarian peasant and his daughter, infecting them with the same existential dread that Nietzsche suffered.
Unconcerned with this unlikely scenario, Tarr's film opens by following the horse through a windswept landscape in one long, seemless take. Over the next six days we follow the routine of these two poor souls in excruciating detail: the camera becomes a character itself, as it follows the daughter to the well every morning, then as she helps her invalid father get dressed, then to the barn (you get the idea). Meals consist of one boiled potato, eaten with their hands, with only salt to flavor it. It's no wonder their only diversion is to take turns looking out the window. (If you've ever wondered how 19th Century Hungarian peasants spent their day, this movie is for you!).
If all this sounds like heavy going, it is. Despite the tedium, the rare interruptions of this solitude (by a narrator, a cart full of gypsies, and a loquacious neighbor) seem out of place and pointless. When the titular horse stops eating and refuses the bit, you expect the worst (and you get it). This is supposed to be a positive review, so let me say the score (repetitive, mournful strings) is riveting. The sound design (incessant wind) is captivating. And I have not seen black and white images this stark and beautiful since Ingmar Bergman's early work.
