This is a film where there is nothing to see. The beginning, middle, and end of this film are all the same. This film is silent, powerless, dead. This film will surely annoy you, and if you get so thoroughly irritated that you flee before watching half of it, then the filmmaker has succeeded. This is a film about not-watching.
For your consolation, I can tell you that at Nandan, the West Bengal film center, 80% of the audience left halfway through in frustration. Which means your camp is quite substantial!
We never keep track of how many people live in this world without finding even a grain of variety in their lives.
They wake up every day because there is nothing else for them to do.
They change the clothes they wore to bed because they don’t know what else one does besides changing clothes.
They simply gaze toward the horizon and wait for noon to arrive, and when noon comes they eat the same food they eat every day, because they have no other food.
They spend day after day in the same room because it never occurs to them to go anywhere else.
They have no dreams; even as they go to sleep each night, they know that tomorrow will be just like today.
For them, life’s only nobility is staying alive. In their eyes, the world is simply living an ordinary, routine existence until death arrives. If something new does happen to enter their lives, they accept it as part of their old life. They can swallow all novelty with great ease. They don’t know what they’re living for—they only know that they are living.
This is not called melancholy, this is called life.
This is not called monotony, this is called life.
This is not called despair, this is called life.
This is not called helplessness, this is called life.
This is not called struggle, this is called life.
They don’t know God, they know life. They don’t understand destiny, they understand life. They don’t know what abundance is; in fact, they may not even know that such a thing as abundance exists.
Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr decided at the mere age of 55 that this film would be the last of his career. The wonder is this: the movie with which the director ended his journey has no conclusion itself.
The Turin Horse. Watch it. You’ll get tremendously sleepy. When the film ends you’ll drift off to sleep, and thoughts will awaken. So do watch it. Another entry will be added to your list of the most colorless, simple, and pure films you’ve ever seen.
For the record, this horse has so far won 14 nominations and 7 awards worldwide.