Dying is the world. Dying will be for the world. This has been the global history even before humans came to exist and start thinking. The Turin Horse is a movie about suffering in this world, where death is omnipresent and unchangeable. The world is going to die with or without us. In billions of years, our sun will blow up as it’s dying, swallowing all the planets that are closer to it down into its core. That’s the macro view; that’s everything in one view. On a smaller scale, we reproduce as species do. Will any of us remain alive to witness this solar monster eat up our old homeward from afar as our kind takes off to populate Milky Way? I don’t know if that would be possible given how things are right now.
A blasting wind blows through the Hungarian Plain. A coachman leads his aged horse back to his farm. A girl comes out and helps hitch the animal and wagon. She helps her father take off his working clothes and puts him into home wear. The potatoes are boiled for dinner. They eat without speaking. Day turns into night, then another day begins, when the daughter fetches two pails full of water from the well. The horse balks at pulling this wagon, but they give up after a few tries. A day passes by, then another one and another one more time again followed by occasionally some variant: an occasional neighbor stops by to drink, the longest monologue in nearly dialogue-less movie tells them that there is no village left there anymore they don’t believe him; they do not believe their own ears either when a group of Romany people come, looking as if dying with thirst, only to be chased away; they leave her a book; which Tarr calls an ant moralistic Bible; coming darkness does not care whether you are prepared or not.
The Turin Horse came forth from a conversation Tarr had with his writing partner László Krasznahorkai. The writer narrates the story at the beginning of the movie; while he was reciting it to him, Krasznahorkai allegedly told an untrue anecdote related about Friedrich Nietzsche. The story goes that one morning Nietzsche left his house and encountered a coachman with a horse that wouldn’t move. The driver lost his temper and started to beat up the horse. Nietzsche embraced the animal so tightly around its neck he broke into tears and sobs for which he could not be consoled. His neighbor took him home, where Nietzsche uttered his final words: “Mutter, ich bin dumm” (Mother, I am stupid). For ten more years he lived in silent madness.
Tarr asked “What happened to the horse?” upon hearing this tale which has been twenty years in making before it can meet its audience as The Turin Horse. Upon release, Tarr declared that this was his last film statement thirteen years ago and has kept quiet on such promise since then. Unless there is another project that preoccupies him even more than what he is absorbed by right now, I don’t think so.
The Turin horse is a completion in its own sense, for a filmmaker who is so obsessed with revolutions and things coming around. It displays the artistry he has honed over his lifetime and unites all his major themes in a way that is deceptively straightforward.
In two and a half hours of the film, there are only 30 shots. It is divided into six parts that cover six days. No plot, no character arcs. Throughout every scene, the wind is constant. That wind doesn’t stop at any point in the story; it comes rushing through in a heavy silence of yet another meal of boiled potatoes just as it howls all night when God upsets and shakes them down to earth.” Our two main characters do not react to this brutal nature. They continue walking slowly following one step after another acknowledging nothing but the cruelty of nature towards their bodies. Mostly what we see these characters do-sit in a chair in front of a window and look out; their faces show only tired kind of pain.
Neighbor came for some brandy on day two while talking about everything that collapses across the planet. The Roma come several days later with a book given to her by her friend. The most dialogue she has is during the scene where she sits and reads aloud to herself. And everything from his book and her neighbor’s talk stresses one thing the world is falling apart, it’s entirely humans’ fault as well as divine wrath”.
The bark beetles cease eating the house frame. The horse first refuses to yield to work and then will not eat. The well has run dry. As a result, the man asks his daughter to pack things up for them because of this last happening. They will go away. They fetch the handcart in which neither of them can walk besides pushing it in front of them since the horse is agreeable to following but not leading. The camera lingers by the house as they ascend a hill towards the distance where there is a leafless tree at its apex. When they get near home, however, they turn back around from that point on top of the hill and put everything away again. They seemed to know nowhere after what lay across the ridge told them so much.
At every step, Tarr has refused to progress things. We are trapped in a cycle where each day barely differs from the other. The only thing that makes us realize the difference is being lost. Finally they run out of water and have to eat raw potatoes. You might see abhorrence on the old man’s face; maybe tears. This situation is solidifying in his mind or it has already solidified in him. Days of having a fairly good meal seems to be gone with the wind. No one can live without water.
Some of the most harrowing moments occur during the last few minutes of this film when daylight disappears as if swallowed by nightfall. Darkness engulfs us save for a candle’s light which incidentally gets extinguished even before then. It’s an anti-Genesis story, for example, God uttered “let there be darkness.” In terms of creation, we can say it is Creation’s last day (six-day structure). Tarr has made this into an undoubted apocalypse it is over. While his previous works portrayed humanity disintegrating, this movie deals with nihilism as a whole lot more than any other film he has done before. The astonishing thing about all that is how unemotional our characters remain throughout their experiences
The apocalypse is not like a bomb; it’s more of a spiral staircase down into the guts of Hell. By the time you reach there, you can’t even sense that something is happening.
Tarr has made a film about the complete incoherence of how we live. We build our routines and views on an unreal reality. Nature is made to fit our requirements as we drive pieces from her side. I am watching footage of the U.S Eastern coast and then upwards into Appalachian Mountains; I see communities being subjected to nature’s force. At such moments one begins to understand why Nietzsche once said “Mother, I am stupid. ”This is similar to Antonioni’s L’Eclisse where at some point individuals become aware of its being over. People go about their lives thoughtlessly, and then everything changes all at once. Don’t do anything but welcome the void because it won’t be long before you can’t do anything else.
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