"The Turin Horse"
Saw Bela Tarrs "Turin Horse" at Renoir. Ive seen several of his previous films. This is the most gruelling to watch of his films I have seen . Over 2 hours of B/W arthouse euromisery.
Left the cinema most depressed. Its unrelentingly grim. Can life just a monotonous repetitious trap you cannot escape from? In the world of Bela Tarr it is.
There is great opening scene as the horse trudges through the windswept landscape to the old mans house. ( It is at beginning of trailer though is much longer) The B/W camerawork becomes hypnotic after a while. Even after leaving the cinema its in your head.
The Turin Horse is the one that Nietzsche hugged before he descended into his last years of mental fragility. Tarr imagines the life of the horse and those around him. The old man and his daughter living in a house in the desolate country.
The film is claustrophobic despite being set in a wide open space. The house is set in a hollow with the rolling hills obscuring a long view. The man and daughter live in abject poverty living solely on potatoes. Life is one repetitive ritual they cannot seem to escape from though they are stoically aware of it. There one attempt to leave is inexplicably aborted.
The horse ( a great performance in itself) is like the old man and his daughter. Seemingly looking at the world without hope or pity. Its not that the characters feel sorry for themselves. Its that they live in an existential hell they ,uncomplaining ,suffer.
At one point a stranger turns up. He regales them with the fact that the town has gone to "ruination" and his views on the repetitive turn of life. This I think is from Nietzsche. It has no effect on the old man who says it is rubbish. There is no hope in the old mans world. In fact there is nothingness. The film is not even about human nature its more about the grim reality of unknowing nothingness that we keep at bay with our actions- life and loves. Which are in the end futile. Well thats how I felt after the film.
