
1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film, which is Tarr's last, follows up this question in a fictiona... (Full plot summary below)
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1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film, which is Tarr's last, follows up this question in a fictionalized story of what occurred. The man who whipped the horse is a rural farmer who makes his living taking on carting jobs into the city with his horse-drawn cart. The horse is old and in very poor health, but does its best to obey its master's commands. The farmer and his daughter must come to the understanding that it will be unable to go on sustaining their livelihoods. The dying of the horse is the foundation of this tragic tale.
Leave your thoughts about The Turin Horse.
| Observer (UK)Philip FrenchThe themes are death, compassion and endurance, but it isn't clear how specific the allegory is. At the end, however, you feel - like the wedding guest buttonholed by the Ancient Mariner - that you've had an experience. |
| New YorkerRichard BrodyTarr turns the particular universal; this family's subsistence reflects ordeals faced daily throughout the world, even today... |
| CinemalogueTodd JorgensonIt's a visually arresting and original work that Tarr's small legion of fans will likely enjoy. |
| Movies.comDave WhiteTarr says this is his last movie. And it feels like it. After you've ended the entire world, not with a giant planet collision like Lars Von Trier did in Melancholia but by simply shooting out the lights, what else is there? |
| Combustible CelluloidJeffrey M. AndersonThe good news is that a new Bela Tarr movie is here. The bad news is that Tarr, who is easily one of the greatest filmmakers alive today -- and perhaps of all time -- has announced that The Turin Horse will be his last. |
| Time OutDave CalhounIt feels like the creation story in reverse -- a terrible, unavoidable walk into the dark. |
| Financial TimesNigel AndrewsThrilling, beautiful and nearly heart-stopping... |
| Ozus' World Movie ReviewsDennis SchwartzThough a heavy and somnolent watch and not for all tastes, it has redeeming value for being so full of reality. |
| Boston GlobeMark FeeneyThe Turin Horse is in a very gray black and white. It looks the same way it feels: bleak, pure, forbidding, transfixing. Watching it, frankly, can be a bit of an ordeal. There's hardly anything in The Turin Horse you would describe as entertaining, but there is a very great deal that's beautiful and absorbing. |
| Antagony & EcstasyTim BraytonOne of the finest and most sublimely harrowing depictions of the End Times that I have ever seen in a movie. |