2012 Film of the Year Countdown: #5

The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr) [163 points / 15 votes]

"And then the wind began, warm, incipient, full of voices from the past, the murmurs of ancient geraniums, sighs of disenchantment that preceded the most tenacious nostalgia.

"Why didn't you go into town?" "The wind's blown it away."

It's a strange and dour apocalypse that we see in Béla Tarr's swan song The Turin Horse -- neither a bang nor a whimper, but a resigned heavy sigh, the sound of a man defeated and unable to do more than trudge towards oblivion. In a small hovel, an old man and his daughter eat potatoes while a gale-force wind wind howls mercilessly outside their window. Their already spartan existence seems threatened by their aged horse's sudden refusal to work; as the horse goes, soon goes the rest of the world. The stunning opening tracking shot, seemingly constructed entirely of damp, matted fur and the palpable weight of effort and set to a minimal funeral dirge for violin and organ, sets the tone as well as any shot could; this is a world where even the smallest actions, like eating a potato, come with fraught with pain and the deliberate ache of carrying on past the point of exhaustion. The expressive cinematography and slow pacing draw us deep into the film, like sinking into a swamp, one whose chill we can feel inside our bones and with strict, time-worn routines whose slow breakdowns send shockwaves through us far more potent than any explosion.

"Everything, everything is lost forever," goes the cry from a despairing neighbor... but then, is it? Despair truly feels like the watchword in The Turin Horse; as everything everywhere grinds to a halt, the everyday actions of the man and his daughter smack of a deluded attempt to maintain normalcy. But then, is that the point? If to hurt is to feel, and to feel is to exist, then is pain not an affirmation of existence? If this is Tarr's last film, his final statement, I can't think of a more powerfully bare piece with which to bow out -- its commitment to the winding-down of things certainly feels like someone's closing argument about humanity, anyway. This "ceremony of penitence," where resignation is the way out and frustrated flailing, whether against a stubborn horse or a malevolent band of water-stealing gypsies, has pessimism on its lips as manifest as the cracks in the rough-hewn wooden table in the center of the hovel. It's a bellow from the soul, a jagged sustained gut-cry that rings with the volume of the wind that constantly roars on the soundtrack, drowned out only by the droning score, and it certainly invites a nihilistic reading. Yet, the last few moments, in my mind, betray the smallest ember of hope -- if not hope for improvement, then hope at least for continuance in the face of the void. The wind will blow and thrash us about until everything falls away and we're reduced to rubble, but we'll still be here, in the dark, defiant against the unrepeatable. There will not be a second opportunity on earth. But regardless, we must carry on. Tomorrow, we'll try again." - Steve Carlson