Berlin 2011 Review: A TORINOI LO (The Turin Horse)

rating: 3

Until I saw A Torinoi Lo, in competition at this year's Berlin Film Festival, I had never seen a film from legendary Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr - though I'd heard much about him, not all of it complimentary. He has a well-earned reputation for making austere films of punishingly long, slow takes. One of his works, Sátántangó, runs at just over seven hours in length, though among his best known fans is Gus Van Sant, who attributes his own use of long single takes to Tarr's influence. Well this new film, which translated into English is called The Turin Horse, is probably a decent enough place to start exploring his ouvre. With a running length of 146 minutes it is comfortably the longest film in competition here (Japanese film Heaven's Story is probably the festival's overall longest at four and a half hours), but compared to Sátántangó it's practically "Bela Tarr for Beginners". It opens with darkness and a narration of a story about Friedrich Nietzsche, who days prior to his death apparently came to the rescue of a stubborn horse that was being thrashed by its owner, throwing his arms around the beast's neck and sobbing. The story ends with the narrator recalling the philosopher's death and last words before dryly concluding with "we do not know what happened to the horse." This frames Bela Tarr's tale which sees six days in the life of a man, his daughter and their stubborn horse and opens on one incredibly long tracking shot of the horse pulling the man (Janos Derzsi) on his cart (lasting somewhere in the region of twenty minutes). No words are spoken at all for at least half an hour and even then they are monosyllabic cries from the man. Over the entire two hour plus film there is less speech than would take up a single page of A4 and Tarr's attitude to dialogue seems to be reinforced midway through the film by the man's reaction to a monologue delivered by a visitor. Here the only condensed block of speech other than the opening is immediately dismissed by the man saying "come off it. That's rubbish" (ending the conversation and sending the man on his way). It is also a good hour before we are clearly able to even see the face of the daughter (Erika Bok) in close-up in this dark, black and white film dominated by shadows. There is little going on in terms of plot or traditional action in A Turin Horse. Every day we watch the girl boiling two potatoes, which they eat after picking the steaming skins off with their fingers before mashing the insides with their hands. We repeatedly see the girl dress and undress her father. She goes every day to fetch water from the well and she tends to the horse in its stable. She basically does everything whilst it isn't clear what the man does aside from stare out of the window and - in one scene - chop firewood. The figure of the mother is absent save for one photograph gleamed from inside the girl's clothes chest and there trade and location is never made clear. They live alone in a desolate and bitterly cold landscape and the howling wind is ever present on the soundtrack. As mentioned before, there isn't much in the way of cutting with Tarr favouring long, slow single takes. In fact there are probably fewer edits in these two hours than in a three minute trailer for any Michael Bay film. Yet the camera isn't as static as is (apparently) traditional in his work, as he frequently and very slowly zooms in and out of scenes. A typical example would start with a close-up on an axe chopping wood and slowly zoom out until we are on the other side of the room, with the shot now including several detailed elements (the window to outside, the fireplace, the girl boiling potatoes etc). It is undeniably a handsomely made film with beautiful cinematography, yet it left me extremely cold and bored for the most part. I'd have to hold my hands up and say I simply don't understand what, if anything, the film is saying. To me it resembles the sought of world cinema imagined by those who don't watch world cinema and parodied on TV sketch comedies. For instance, there is a "poignant" shot of the horse weeping after being beaten by his master, after which the animal refuses to work or eat. Later we see that the daughter is pulling the cart instead and by the end, like the horse, she will no longer eat. Not if survival is for its own sake: to do more work and to spend more time living in the darkness. There is doubtless some great metaphor at work here but I'm not sure it's worth the time getting to it. It is fitting that the Hungarian word for day appeared to be "Nap" on each of the film's intertitles. Fitting because that's exactly what the critics either side of me were doing at various points. I expected some boos at the end, so the voracious wave of applause offered up by the critics left me feeling, at best, like the little boy who noticed the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes and, at worst, like I was horribly out of step with opinion. In any case, after this experience I can't say I'm eager to put the time in on Sátántangó. Perhaps it's my loss, and he is certainly a unique director, but if I disguised my respect and mild appreciation as enjoyment and affection I'd be lying to myself.