TJE 7/22 - The Turin Horse (2011)

We begin with the famous anecdote about Friedrich Nietzche, who one day encountered a horse being beaten by his driver in the street, and intervened. He was so overcome by the incident, it may have contributed to a mental breakdown that Nietzche suffered and never fully recovered from. The film suggests that it will tell us what happened to the unfortunate horse and its driver, but I'm not sure that it really does.

"The Turin Horse" is an apocalyptic fable, about an unnamed man (János Derzsi) and his daughter (Erika Bók), who life in a small stone cottage in an empty wasteland. They own the titular horse, who we seeing being driven homeward by the man in the opening shots of the film. Subsequently, the horse stays in the small stables adjacent to the cottage and refuses to eat or drink. Perhaps it knows something that the humans do not. For the rest of the film, spanning six days, father and daughter remain in this tiny, remote place, waiting out a terrible windstorm that rages outside, and going through a daily routine of drudgery and growing despair. But who could expect anything more cheerful from the great Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr?

I will warn you now that "The Turin Horse" is an art film to test the patience of art film lovers. It is two and a half hours long, shot in beautiful, bleak black and white. The sparse lines of dialogue are spoken in Hungarian. By the director's own admission, the film is designed to wear on the viewer, with its constant repetitions of the characters' routines, the ominous musical score, and the ever darkening mood. Long, long static shots show the arduous task of drawing water from the nearby well, the mundanity of the characters consuming their daily allotment of boiled potatoes, and the struggle to complete chores outside while being buffeted by the violent winds. "What's going on?" the daughter asks one night in the darkness, the only time when father and daughter seem able to speak honestly to each other. There are signs that larger forces are are work, perhaps close to bringing about the end of the world.

What does any of this have to do with the madness of Friedrich Nietzche? If the dialogue is Hungarian, where does Turin come in, or does Turin just refer to the horse's point of origin? These are not the kinds of questions that the film is interested in answering, at least not directly. Instead, as with Bela Tarr's previous films, the objective is to create a particular reality for the audience, to evoke a mental state that lets them experience a fragment of this desolate universe. We come to understand that the main characters live lives so devoid of meaning or purpose, that their very desire to exist is being sapped away. I suppose you could argue then, that watching the film is akin to endangering your own mental health. I'm kidding. Mostly.

The power of the film is in its simplicity and starkness. Sets and costumes and bare bones and utilitarian. A town is mentioned, but we never see it. The actors' performances are harshly naturalistic, recalling Robert Bresson's famously dead-eyed female leads, reflecting his distaste for any sign of affectation. We watch the characters work and work, the focus on their slumped forms rather than their faces. The man is bearded, and the girl's hair is always in the way, especially when she is outside. The cinematography, though very beautiful, is unrelenting in its dreariness. It is a relief when other briefly characters appear at the cottage, to provide momentary respite from the sameness of each day's cycle, even though each new deviation is a portent of steadily encroaching doom.

It's easy to label "The Turin Horse" pretentious cinema for masochistic snobs, but the emotions that it stirs and the themes that it explores are not so easy to dismiss. There have been many films about a coming apocalypse in recent years, but only a few films like "The Road" and "Perfect Sense" have confronted the hopelessness that lurks on the edges of these narratives. "The Turin Horse" does so even more directly. It doesn't matter what caused the end of the world here, but only that it renders an endless, difficult struggle for simple existence too arduous to continue. And watching the characters reach that breaking point is fascinating, terrifying, and deeply moving.

This is reportedly Bela Tarr’s final film. I’ve only seen one of the others, “Werkmeister Harmonies,” which I loved. The other major one, “Satantango,” remains on my to-watch list. I’m a little afraid of it, really. Considering my reaction to his other work, the seven hour running time of “Satantango” may be too overwhelming. “The Turin Horse” is going to be difficult enough to recover from.
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