Review of The Turin Horse (2011) by Sarfaraz A — 16 Feb 2013

The Turin Horse (A torinói ló Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky,. Starring János Derzsi, Erika Bók. Film was co-written by Tarr and his László Krasznahorkai. The film is shot in black-and-white. The film premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, and earned Jury Grand Prix. The film was official Hungarian entry for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language, but could not make it to final list. This is supposedly the last film by Tarr, as he claims in his interview with NY Times.

The opening of the film a man narrates an earlier short-story of Nietzsche, while in Turin (Italy) one day in 1889, he witnessed a cart driver beating a horse and threw himself, weeping, on the animal's neck ,according to legend, the event led mental breakdown from which Nietzsche never recovered.

Tarr says that he wanted to show the heaviness of the life; plus the daily basic routines to fetch water from well under harsh weather, in someone's life. After watching interview of Tarr, I came up with view that if we were to ascertain segments of life's philosophical ups-and-downs then, there are countless such issues out there, to dramatize them and debate over their existence in the universe.

If Tarr is so much anxious to show the world about daily fetching of water from well and how hard it can be for someone, then he should research on this and come to Thar (Sindh, Pakistan) one of the largest deserts in the world, where the dwellers go out each day in search of water.

These movies are not aimed at general/average audience, for they contain real upheavals of human-life and tragic resounding of misery suffered at state of poverty and ever changing environment (that Tarr wants to explain).