Leave it to Steven Spielberg to make an emotional, sentimental, and heartwarming movie centered on World War I. Actually this story already existed, first as a children’s book published in the early 80’s, and again as a stage play in recent years, and all of the sentimentality was already present by this time. But it took the immense skill of Mr. Spielberg to take what could have been an overly-weepy and nearly impossible to film story and turn it into such a well-made piece of entertainment, still weepy and sentimental for sure, but at least done with consummate professionalism and skill.
War Horse is the story of a boy and his horse…or maybe more like a story about a horse and his boy. The movie starts with the birth of this thoroughbred horse, first how his mother raised him and then by young Albert (Jeremy Irvine), who names the horse Joey, quickly breaks him in and makes him his own. The first chunk of the film centers on Joey and Albert and Albert’s family’s farm, which needs to be plowed under so they can grow some turnips in order to make some money in order to save their home from the hard ass landlord. The beginning of this movie is important because it demonstrates both the love that Albert has for his horse and the importance of the horse to the family, and this is key to this story’s drama because we have to feel that sense of loss when the horse gets commissioned into the British Army at the outset of World War I.
This is where the story gets a little more episodic, as Joey is the main character and we only get little snippets of the different people he comes into contact with. We learn a little about the British officer that rides him into battle, but that quickly gives way to Joey being taken into the German army to be used as a workhorse until he collapses from exhaustion, but Joey doesn’t spend too much there initially as he ends up with a pair of young German soldiers deserting the army and hiding out at a farmhouse. But these deserters don’t last long before Joey finds himself in the care of a random French girl and her grandfather, and before long he gets sucked back into the war by the Germans, only to end up in No Man’s Land between the British and German trenches of a WW I battlefield.
If the story sounds epic, that’s because it is, and towards the end it breaks off into Albert’s story of joining the army underage and fighting in the trenches himself. The last thirty minutes of the movie is probably the most memorable, both as Albert runs through the trench battle and tries to stay alive with his comrades, and as Joey puts himself into a predicament which causes a German soldier and a British soldier to come together for a greater good, even if only for a few moments. It’s actually this one scene that really exemplifies what Spielberg does so well in this movie, harrowing and horrible circumstances and situations mixed with a larger hope for humanity and for decency to win out, sentimentality not for the sole purpose of jerking tears but instead to balance out the depths of despair that war elicits.
Of course since this is a Steven Spielberg production, just about everything is as good as it could possibly be. The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Minority Report) is incredibly beautiful, and it looked like Spielberg and Kaminski took the Terrence Malick approach to shooting only during the “magic hour,” because the film is loaded with as many gorgeous, painterly shots as it could handle. Super long time collaborator John Williams crafted another rousing and very John Williams-esque score, and there really is something about Spielberg’s visuals and Williams’ music that make them go so well together. The acting is great from everyone, both long time actors and newbies alike, and of course the horses steal the show, both the numerous horses used to portray Joey, and the other horses used throughout the film (totaling somewhere close to 300 horses). It’s tricky to try to tell a story in which the hero is an animal, and Spielberg nails it here, showing the horse as a thinking, living, intelligent being, as it makes decisions and sacrifices that express it’s character, and it’s really an incredible sight.
War Horse is one of 2011’s best films for sure, but what else can be expected from a master filmmaker? Just about any other director would have made this a schmaltzy Hallmark card style movie-of-the-week, but here we get a loving, emotionally invested and sprawling war drama, 100% devoid of any and all cynicism, and created with the utmost craft and care.
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