Bela Tarr’s film begins with a voiceover, recounting how in 1889 Nietzsche saw a horse being beaten so violently that the philosopher was compelled to throw himself between the animal and whip. Nietzsche then suffered a physical and mental collapse, spending the remaining ten years of his life in a quiet dementia.
But what, asks our narrator, became of the horse?
What follows may or may not be a fictionalised account of the beast’s fate, that lies somewhere on the border of a genuine masterpiece and an insufferable endurance test. For Tarr’s final film achieves its goal so unequivocally, so viscerally, so beautifully that his artistry cannot be denied. Unfortunately his goal is to spend 146 mins portraying the relentless, repetitive and inescapable nature of suffering.
In just thirty long and stunning takes, the film follows the joyless, repetitive choreography of a man and daughter (János Derzsi and Erika Bók, both incredible) over six days – more than enough to suggest the interminable, infinite loop of their hopelessness; the almost silent days they spent tending to their horse, the well, their hunger – never their happiness.
Starkly beautiful, Tarr’s film is black and white, bringing a timeless quality to the already vague setting - the small house could be in Hungary, Italy, the island from Lost, Godot’s favourite hang-out - and highlighting the harsh beauty of the unforgiving rural landscape.
An ill-judged (and badly dubbed) monologue from a neighbour provides a Cliff’s Notes version of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but like the sporadic narration, it proves to be a jarring exercise in needless exposition. For as the ominous score endlessly loops, the theme of hopeless resignation is clear.
The Turin Horse will understandably prove too bleak, too long and too pretentious for many; it is an exceedingly demanding film. But as a Nietzschean treatise on human existence, it couldn’t be more radical, eloquent, or pure.