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5/25/2015

The Turin Horse/A Torinói Ló (2011) - Tarr's final delivery of Hungarian pointlessness



+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year
+ Most Sleep-inducing Movie of the Year

One sparse, elegant poster for Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse


Turin Horse is Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr's (Satantango/Sátántangó (1994)) final film, co-directed with editor Ágnes Hranitzky (Werckmeister Harmonies/Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000)), co-written by Tarr and László Krasznahorkai (Damnation/Kárhozat (1988))

The final week in the life of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, upon his witnessing the flogging of a horse in Turin, Italy.

This makes for a mystifying, boring affair, instructive in Tarr's own theme of life's stoic harshness and a message which eludes the patient viewer until even after the last frame has left the screen. (The film is 146 relentlessly long minutes long.)
Without plot or development, the film drags its way on through its just 30 different shots, occasionally exciting compositions (by cinematographer Fred Kelemen (Frost (1997)) of the windblown landscape with beautiful music by Mihály Vig (The Man from London/A Londoni Férfi (2007)).
Father and daughter pull water from the well and eat potatoes, until they die, in Tarr's sleep-inducing Turin Horse.

Related posts:
 

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess


Watch the trailer for the film her

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 163k $
= Uncertainty
[But most likely a huge flop. The film was made with funds from Eurimages (240k €), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (100k €) as well as Hungarian, French, German, Swiss and American companies. The total budget was most likely around 1-3 mil. $. Shooting began in 2008 and went on for very long. The premiere was delayed until the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear. The film is held in high esteem by many critics, who mistake pretentious tediousness with High Art.]

What do you think of The Turin Horse?
And Tarr's other films, if you have seen any?

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