The Turin Horse

Béla Tarr, like Nietzsche once did, touched his horse and was speechless. The Turin Horse is not a film ABOUT the Turin horse, it IS the Turin horse. A narratively parched image of a world in which nothing remains but despair, automatism, and emptiness. An intellectually monolithic image of a fading world from which meaning and hope depart as the last sigh. All that remains is the darkness, the gale, and the dictation of nothingness that mankind has brought onto itself. Along with Tarr's personal myth, The Turin Horse is one of the great achievements of contemporary art, Gesamtkunstwerk in an almost forgotten traditional sense, the narrative termination of the contract with the viewer and the world, the undiluted stumbling towards the final darkness. A film that resonates, and I daresay it will one day be one of the great reflections of the end of civilization. (07/04/2011)

Béla Tarr is simply not a filmmaker I could ever like. His style of filmmaking is too poetic, it's too much of a parable that ultimately tells me nothing. It's hard to finish the film because you feel like it's about nothing. Nevertheless, in his films, you'll find scenes that might even make you think. I don't think I'll be watching any more of his films. (04/27/2016)

I don’t consider myself strictly mainstream—I can watch anything from blockbusters to artsy films. But with those more experimental, artistic ones, I often struggle to find the right rhythm, so they tend to lose me. One sleepless night, I decided to check out The Turin Horse since it had been hyped as one of the best films of 2011. And, well, it’s strange. It’s hard to describe. There’s barely any dialogue, and the environment itself does most of the storytelling. I think everyone has that one artsy film that clicks for them—like Stalker did for me, even though I can’t fully explain why I liked it. But The Turin Horse? I just couldn’t get into it. (02/19/2012)