Review of The Turin Horse

The film is shown in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, and its subtitles are white on black for the German and Hungarian languages spoken. As for the DVD features, they are solid. The first is s brief 12 minute short film Tarr made in 1978, called Hotel Magnezit which depicts an aging alcoholic who is persecuted by unknown others for alleged wrongdoings. It is not in good shape, visually, and the acting is very poor, to say the least. It's at best, a misfire. Then there is a near 50 minute long press conference at the Berlinale Film Festival, wherein Tarr, his three main actors, and his technical collaborators, answer question from an international group of reporters. While there are a few moments of insight, the stark contrast between the depths of the film and the insipidities of the assorted reporters makes for many awkward moments, where the viewer feels sorry for the questioner and senses the artists' frustrations. There is also the theatrical trailer, and a small booklet with a very poorly written and teeth-gnashingly trite essay, called Brute Existence: The Turin Horse, on the film by American film critic J. Hoberman. Finally there is an audio commentary by another notoriously bad American film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, that is one of the worst that you will ever encounter. It truly does seem that the Golden Age of DVD commentaries is at an end. Aside from the fact that the commentary has silent gaps, it also only runs less than half the length of the film because, as Rosenbaum says early on, he thinks the film needs no commentary. So, then why agree to do the damned thing? Let someone with more enthusiasm take over. As for the actual commentary? It's rather pathetic, for Rosenbaum adds almost nothing original, instead mostly reading others' critical opinions on the film, and then even relying on biographical and career information on Tarr from, of all places, the always unreliable Wikipedia. It's truly an astonishing train wreck of a commentary- one which Rosenbaum calls his first solo commentary, and hopefully, for the cineastes out there, what will be his last commentary. Aside from the absolute lack of anything meaningful to say on the film, Rosenbaum's nasal, screechy voice is a turn-off, but even more so is his constant pimping of his own career, and the fact that he is going to be teaching, in 2013 at a new film school Tarr is opening in Croatia. About the only positives that one can say of Rosenbaum's nearly 70 minutes of speaking is that he makes two salient points that few other critics have noticed: 1) that despite being labeled anti-Hollywood, Tarr's films are often shot on sets, and Rosenbaum claims this film was also shot on a soundstage. 2) He acknowledges that Tarr's camera is always doing something interesting to offset the seeming repetition of the activities the characters engage in, and this counterpoint between action and depiction helps craft a grand narrative from what seems to be little material. Other than these two points, Rosenbaum's relentless need to posit himself as an insider into indy film circles, and his utter lack of insight into the film at hand, make listening to the commentary a chore.

While the film was much honored at a number of the international film festivals it was shown at, it did not make the list for best Foreign Picture Oscars in America (surprise, surprise). Yet, despite this snub, The turin Horse is yet another great film in Tarr's canon, at least equal to Damnation and Satantango, clearly superior to The Man From London, even if it likely falls a bit shy of Tarr's greatest film, Werckmeister Harmonies. It is a brutally great work of realism in an oddly closed universe consisting of one windy plain (see the scene where the pair try to leave their home, only to wind up right back in it). Near the end of the film, the unnamed daughter asks of her father, or perhaps rhetorically (it does not matter), What is all this darkness?

Let me answer: it is art, child. Art.