Film Review: A Torinói Ló (The Turin Horse) [2011]

Since I don't have any other experiences with Tarr's films outside of what I just witnessed from the comfort of my computer chair I'll try to not go into too much about Tarr as a director or his style or his works and mainly focus this text on my personal opinions of the recent experience with The Turin Horse and what I thought about that film. These are the opinions that I just wrote out through tired eyes at 1 AM from the darkness of my room so I'll apologize in advance for the many accounts of spelling and grammatical errors aswell as my ineducated opinions on the subject of Béla Tarr and art-house films in general.

A Torinói Ló [2011]

Maybe it's naive of me to venture into the world of Béla Tarr with his most recent, and also possibly final work, A Tornói Ló (or The Turin Horse as it is known as in English and also what I will refer to it in this post). IMDB describes this film as being about "A rural farmer is forced to confront the mortality of his faithful horse" something I didn't quite pick up from the film; there was something about Nietzsche and then there was a storm and there was also potatoes.

The Turin Horse is not the film you want to pick for date night. It's a bleak, drawn out and incredibly slow story of a father and his daugther's depressing lives in the middle of absolutely nowhere, where they spend their days doing nothing and then eating potatoes. The man returns home to his house as a devilish storm moves into the countryside to dominate the planes for several days to come. The ever apparent buzz of the storm never leaves the family and constantly sits as a reminder of the troubling situation they're in, like a blister on your tongue or an itch under your skin. The real issue however comes when the family horse gets sick and refuses to do anything other than standing around in the stable, refusing to take the father into town and refusing to eat, leaving the family stranded in their house as the storm continues to rage outside.

While the film isn't necessarily minimalistic, it does a good job of doing nothing for a majority of the film. We see the two characters going about their days in a similar manner, day after day, we see little to no dialogue outside of what the characters absolutely have to say to eachother and we barely see anything other than single, enduring shots of the mundane activities the characters do, such as long shots of them with the potatoes (which is far more perplexing than I'm making it sound).

I enjoyed the subtle details of the film aswell as the change of pace once the film reached its repetitive groove about halfway through. Hearing the neighbor come over and actually give a longer monologue was one of my favorite parts of the film and the only moment that I truly felt immersed in Tarr's world. Suddenly the world felt alive, and not as if the house and its two inhabitants were the last two people standing on earth, it gave a sense of realism to the world which only added to the heartbreak and bleakness of their situation as the movie progressed. I guess that this was mostly due to me being happy over a change of pace in the film, seeing something else than the repeated daily life of the family.

All in all I enjoyed the film. It will probably be a long while before I muster up the power to take myself through yet another of Tarr's enormous, soul sucking, bleak films and it will probably take even longer before I find myself sitting through the 400 minute long Santatango. For now, I'm happy with my experience with The Turin Horse. I might not have been able to appreciate all of its qualities and Tarr still remains a director who I believe is still quite a bit too difficult for someone like me, but I hope to grow fond of him later in my life.

A Torinói Ló [2011]
dir. B. Tarr
6
Anton Öberg Sysojev