The Turin Horse

2011
7.7| 2h35m| en
Details

A monumental windstorm and an abused horse's refusal to work or eat signal the beginning of the end for a poor farmer and his daughter.

Director

Producted By

Vega Film

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime. Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Kirpianuscus a man. his daughter. a horse. and the every day events. nothing different. only gray images. and the sickness. gestures. crumbs of dialog. and the atmosphere of the collapse of time. a film about ashes of emotions, expectations, hope. like a Ionesco play. because the place is an isle and the words - burned seeds. nothing is real . only the search to build again the existence before the sickness of the horse. in many films, the script, the acting are the important things for public. in the case of The Turin HHorse, present is only the director. maybe because, like each film of Bella Tarr, it is a confession. personal. honest. maybe cruel. a story from a circle who remains too far because it exists in everyone.
Maz Murdoch (asda-man) Now, I had heard some peculiar things about this film that did put me off slightly. I heard that it was two and a half hours in length and only had 30 shots. Don't get me wrong, I love a long take as much as the next fat person, but 30 in 150 minutes sounded excessive and potentially tedious. I also heard that the film had no plot at all and just followed an old man and his daughter going about their day-to-day business, which put me off. However, The Turin Horse had such rave reviews from everyone who had seen it. The imagery did look beautiful, and I was really looking forward to experiencing something unique and new. Unfortunately my fears were pretty much met.It is probably one of the most boring films I've seen. Like Uzak, it's Hungarian, and if I've learnt anything from Hungarian films it's that Hungary must be the most lifeless place on Earth. The Turin Horse actually manages to outdo Uzak in terms of boring characters, and gives us THE two most boring characters on the planet. A grunting father and daughter who live in the middle of nowhere and only speak when they have something to grumble about. If these two met up for coffee with the two brothers from Uzak, I could only imagine the stimulating, jovial conversation that would flow between them!The Turin Horse is hardcore art-house. I'm into art-house films when they offer some sort of story of experience. I just can't get my head around films where literally nothing happens. Some people find art in watching the mundane activities of life, but I'm afraid that it just does not interest me. For me, The Turin Horse was basically the same short film being repeated six times, as it takes place over six very long days. It goes like this: They get up, the daughter dresses her father because he's far too boring to dress himself, she goes out to the well and fills up some buckets, brings them in. Then they have a muck about with the most tragically lifeless horse you've ever seen (I think boredom catches), and then they eat a potato and go to bed. Repeat. I didn't find anything "mesmerising" or "gripping" in these activities, as many reviewers have stated.Whatever you do, don't believe the DVD's blurb! The blurb actually makes it sound like a really interesting apocalyptic thriller. It says that the film has left audiences "gasping for breath" which was obviously just mistaken for audiences being rudely woken up when the film had finally finished. Apparently there are "a bizarre series of disturbing events" unless this counts the arrival of some gypsies who get shooed away by the father, because they obviously brought far too much life to the film. The "terrifying, all-consuming finale" may be all-consuming but it's not that terrifying. A better blurb would say, "Imagine a film which captures the boring, daily routine of your own life and amplify it by ten thousand."However, The Turin Horse isn't all bad. Yes it has nothing going for it in terms of plot or characters (something I consider as the most important aspect of a film, especially one at 150 minutes long), but there's no denying how outstandingly beautiful the film looks. It looked so promising when it opened and I was hoping that all my fears would be dashed! It opens with a five minute take of the Turin horse pulling a wagon with the father on, but thanks to the beautifully fluid camera-work it's anything but boring! The way the camera floated around the fog reminded me a bit of Gaspar Noe's visual spectacle, Enter the Void, a film I consider to be the absolute best on a visual level. On top of that there was a wonderful haunting score featuring very melancholic violins and an organ, a score that would drop in and out of the film regularly, and a score which I liked greatly.The imagery and music are the only redeeming features. Sometimes the film looked like a moody painting, painted in ink. There's no denying how atmospheric the whole thing looked, and the fact that all the scenes were done in one uninterrupted take is highly impressive. Even if there are no interesting actions being filmed, I did like the way the camera would move from one perfectly framed shot to another so effortlessly. I especially loved the haunting shot of the daughter sitting out looking out the window like a desperately lonely ghost. I also did like the dread-filled ending where the father carries on his boring life regardless of a total apocalyptic blackout.For some people this is enough. For some, masterful direction, atmosphere, a beautifully melancholic score and gorgeous visuals and cinematography is enough to warrant labelling a film a masterpiece. However, for me I require more. You can have the most beautiful visuals in the world, but if you don't give a fig about who's in them or what's going on in them, then they don't really mean much. The Turin Horse is totally and utterly plot-less, pointless and outrageously laborious. It's one of the most boring things I've seen, but it is also beautifully made. There's no denying Bela Tarr's talent as a director, and if he had a real plot then he would be extremely powerful, but this has no plot. So if your into watching drips eating potatoes through the lens of a masterful director, then you might just be in luck!
hany_nouh I found this film is good, it's makes me thank god Now there is one laughing mistake The door of the poor house have a modern lock With face plate, latch, dead loch, "modern" lever handle and cylinder. The lock is not fitted with the very poor door and house it's strange scene in the middle of that all miserable live in all during the movieThere is a big question about why's the father and daughter return to their home although the changed what is happened. Is that the wisdom of dying in the land of grandfathers, and so whatever. I cannot touch the relation between Nietzsche story and a battle to survive in very hard and poor condition
odarden Ornamented with elements of Bresson's Balthazaar, Tarkovsky's Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot, this almost unbearably beautiful film stands as Tarr's simplest and most enigmatic. Here, the wind is music and Tarr's familiar film score from Mihály Víg becomes a kind of sweet pain killer. Deadly serious, but not without great suspense, The Turin Horse opens a window to the decay of a world that knew better days. The mother is gone, the other horse has died (or maybe was stolen), the father's right arm that built this magnificent stone barn and house has expired, the bird cage is empty. And it is sad, this last film from Bela Tarr. It's like death: mine, yours, the world's, the cinema's. Without light, how can those images be projected? But, what are the daughter and father watching but a movie? Theirs is a kind of patience, but like the great Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa said, it is perhaps a patience without wisdom, without clarity in which, after time, people crack. Perhaps the characters are caught in a net of forbearance. Does the camera eye free us? Are we then able to transform forbearance into intelligent patience? Should we watch ourselves watching movies? And at the end, is the light of our minds enough? Thank you, Bela Tarr, for sharing your vision of life with us.