The Turin Horse

Viewers are used to expecting severity from Hungarian maestro Bela Tarr, but in THE TURIN HORSE, he surpasses himself with a minimalistic drama that is stark even by the standards of his “Satantango” and “Werckmeister Harmonies”.

In chapters set over five days, the action – such as it is – takes place at a farmhouse in a brutally windblown landscape, where an elderly man, named at one point as Ohlsdorfer (Derszi) lives with his daughter (Bok) in bitterly austere conditions. In the first extended shot, the horse pulls Ohlsdorfer’s car along a country road. Thereafter, the film follows the two human characters’ daily routine in great precision and with deliberate repetition: every day, they wake, the man dresses, his daughter walks to fetch water from the well, and eventually they sit down to a daily meager repast of boiled potatoes. Barely a word is said. This gruelingly monotonous routine is interrupted by two events. First, a neighbour (Kormos) arrives to buy some palinka (liquor) and delivers an extended rant about how the world is collapsing in an unstoppable circuit of degradation and acquisition. Second, a group of gypsies pass through, leaving the daughter a religious book which she later reads.

Viewers may emerge variously bored, puzzled, mesmerised or thrilled by the audacity of a film that dares to take cinema back to a bare-bones language reminiscent of the silent era. Tarr has announced that this will be his last film, and indeed it’s hard to imagine where he could go from here. It’s a shame to think of this heroically uncompromising director shutting up shop, but if he does, THE TURIN HORSE is a magnificent farewell.

Jonathan Romney