In my write-up on "Anatolia," I described it as
dirge-like. "Turin Horse" is even more funereal. Whereas
"Anatolia" depicted human society in tatters, "Turin Horse"
contemplates the end of life itself, much as Lars von Trier's
"Melancholia" did, a third dirge-like high-art film on the worldwide
festival circuit in 2011. Why is the European male avant-garde so depressed as
of late -- and why are their films so disappointing?
"The Turin Horse" is set in the late 19th century,
in a very remote corner of Hungary. A middle-aged male peasant and his adult
daughter live alone. Their only livestock is a horse. These three creatures go
about their daily life with their heads down, performing one mundane task after
another and eating one meal a day. The horse eats hay; the humans eat (with
their hands) one boiled potato per day. Tarr has us watch them eat on several
occasions. Rarely have humans been compared to livestock more effectively.
But something is very strange in this world. An enormous
wind storm makes it almost impossible to go outdoors. The long opening sequence
shows the man and horse struggling to travel along a muddy dirt road with the
massive gale at their faces. Eventually they make it back to their hovel, where
the daughter silently feeds them and gets them ready for bed. The next morning,
the wind hasn't died down at all.
Lucky us, we get to watch these wretched creatures wordlessly
go about their daily routines for a couple more hours (total running time is two-and-a-half hours) while a short, annoying piece of
dissonant music plays ceaselessly on the soundtrack. It resembles the sound of
sick cows whining (or over-educated male intellectuals whining about their
lives lacking fulfillment). I think this piece of music plays about 50 times, adding to the Chinese-water-torture quality of the film. Also on the
mind-numbing soundtrack: the incessant sound of the wind.
A couple things happen at the end of "Turin Horse"
that break the monotony and provide some dramatic resolution. I won't give away
the details, but there is a change in the weather finally -- not for the
better.
Awkwardly wrapped around this maddeningly minimalist film
(which is shot in black-and-white, incidentally) is a contemplation of
Friedrich Nietzsche's famous breakdown in 1889 at about the age of 45 when he
was visiting the Italian city of Turin.
As legend has it, the quasi-demonic philosopher witnessed a
horse being brutally whipped by its owner. In a fit of rage and pathos, it is said, Nietzsche threw his arms around the horse, sobbing inconsolably. Unable to (or
refusing to) regain lucidity, he was taken to a mental hospital and never
returned to normal life. He remained in the daily care of relatives for the
last 10 years of his life, considered to be mentally ill. For decades it was thought his mental breakdown was caused by syphilis, but that has been drawn into
question recently.
Tarr didn't just title the film in a way to refer to Nietzsche's demise, he also begins the film with a narration that describes the philosopher's breakdown in Turin.
Tarr may not be a great artist, but he is an authentic one.
(I would say the same of the other European male filmmakers named above, Nuri Ceylan and Lars von Trier.) Thus there are some interesting
things to contemplate here. On one level, it seems that Tarr is breaking away from bourgeois civilization or rational civilization in a way that reminds him of
Nietzsche's experience.
On another level, it seems that Tarr feels that capitalist
civilization is literally destroying life, a sentiment I certainly share, at
least on some levels and at some times. But while there are interesting ideas
behind the project, "Turin Horse" doesn't capture these ideas very well. Spending two hours watching livestock (human and otherwise) on a
death march is not artistically enriching for me. I'd rather spend that two
hours reading Nietzsche's "Antichrist."
No comments:
Post a Comment