"There is minimalism, and then there's The Turin Horse..."

Before going to see The Turin Horse I had been reliably informed that Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s meditative feature was merely people eating potatoes for two and a half hours – and such advice didn’t prove to be too far off the mark.

The film begins with Tarr’s very own mesmerising Herzog-esque voice-over explaining the story – where we begin in the latter end of the 19th century where German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche suffered a mental collapse on the streets of Turin as he witnessed the whipping of a horse that had ignored instructions from his owner.

We then follow the story of the horse after these events, delving into the monotonous lives of its elderly owner and rural farmer Ohlsdorfer (János Derzsi) and his daughter (Erika Bók), living together, working carting jobs between their humble abode and the city. Yet the horse is ageing and has become weary, and both Ohlsdorfer and his daughter must come to the realisation and understanding that the horse will not survive for much longer, and will therefore be unable to uphold their livelihoods.

Renowned for his somewhat slow-burning cinematic approach, with Sátántangó lasting an incredible seven and a half hours – The Turin Horse may not be that long (though it feels like it), and is a highly austere and thought-provoking production. With little dialogue Tarr really tests his audience’s endurance – set over six days where very little actually happens. Each and every day the pair eat a potato each for their lunch – and we watch the daughter cook the potatoes, bring them to the table, and then we witness the pair slowly working their way through them. This scene reoccurs on six occasions, each lasting somewhere between 5-10 minutes. That’s almost an hour of potatoes.

Each shot is incredibly long, which gives us the chance to take in every last detail as we attempt to come to terms with the characters and their situations. Such camera techniques form a quite tense atmosphere. There is one shot where we zoom in on a shirt that has been left out to dry and I wouldn’t have put it past Tarr to film it until it had.

Despite offering a whole range of emotions, The Turin Horse does become rather tedious and relatively boring in parts, unnecessarily long. There is no need for this picture to last as long as it does. Honestly, give me 15 minutes alone in an editing suite and I’ll cut this baby down to 90 minutes. I desperately attempted to keep an open mind and enter Tarr’s world, but the lack of activity does prove to be quite testing. Nothing truly happens, nothing at all.

I can see what Tarr is aiming for with such an approach and I admire him for doing so – as he really depicts the tediousness and repetitiveness of these characters’ lives, admittedly nothing really happens, but that’s sort of the point. Tarr makes us feel as though we too are in a similar production, creating the tedious atmosphere that exists for Ohlsdorfer and his daughter.

On a more positive note, the feature looks absolutely fantastic, and there is no denying that this is a quite brilliant piece of cinema. Shot in black and white, the colours play against each other incredibly well as the inside of the house is darkly lit, whilst outside is alarmingly bright. This too has its connotations as inside is where these monotonic characters live, outside is where the rest of the world is potentially glowing. The performances from our lead two roles are also brilliant, subtle and understated to perfection. With so little dialogue in the feature we rely on their facial expressions to portray their suffering and loneliness, which they both manage to get agonisingly spot on.

The Turin Horse is a wonderfully brave piece of film making by Tarr, testing boundaries and taking it to the limit. Yet it is hard work, and perhaps too much so. It’s a real marathon and you have to work your way through this film, although in this respect when the film concludes it feels incredibly rewarding for the patient audience who have made it this far. Although I do think that anyone who sees this film through to the end should be rewarded with a free popcorn voucher, or at the very least a certificate of acknowledgement. There is minimalism, and then there’s The Turin Horse.