“The Turin Horse,” a black-and-white art film about rugged life and animal cruelty, opens in New York City this weekend. A subsequent US nationwide release is planned.
The 146-minute film, Bela Tarr’s final work, opens Friday, February 10th, at New York’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center as part of a full Lincoln Center retrospective honoring the acclaimed Hungarian movie director’s work. The six-day event is titled "The Last Modernist: The Complete Works of Bela Tarr.”
“The Turin Horse,” presented February 10th by The Film Society of Lincoln Center, happens to be Hungary’s official entry for the 2012 Academy Awards.
Tarr also directed “Almanac of the Fall” (1985), “Damnation” (1988), The Man from London” (2007), “Sátántangó” (1994), and “Werckmeister Harmonies” (2000).
Described as “a death-haunted masterpiece” by The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman, the movie tells the story of an Italian carriage driver and his horse. Apparently, 19th Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw the farmer beat his equine and fell nearly mute for a decade in despair and madness. But the film focuses not on Nietzszhe, depicting the austere life and death of the horse.
The Cinema Guild release includes sparse dialogue, which is in Hungarian with English subtitles. A few obscenities may be heard, as well as threatened violence and disparaging remarks about gypsies. Horse lovers may find the film difficult to watch, as it zeroes in closely on the horse’s demise.
Laszlo Krasznahorkai wrote the screen play for “The Turin Horse,” which stars Janos Derzsi, Erika Bók and Mihály Kormos. The film, which had a limited U.S. screening in November 2011, has already been released in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, The Czech Republic, and The Netherlands.
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