The Turin Horse

In Turin, on January 3, 1889, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed a horse being brutally whipped in the street. He threw his arms around the animal’s neck, sobbing, and lost his mind forever. History tells us what became of the philosopher, but Béla Tarr asks the question no one else did: what became of the horse?

In this monumental final chapter of his career, the Hungarian master takes us to a desolate, storm-swept plain. Here, we follow six days in the life of a coachman, his daughter, and their recalcitrant horse. Their existence is reduced to a monotonous cadence of primal rituals: dressing, fetching water, and eating a single, scalding hot potato. Every movement is a struggle against time and the elements.

THE TURIN HORSE is the “un-creation” of the world, wrote Ronald Rovers in his review. Where the world was built in six days, Tarr dismantles it in six. While the wind howls incessantly around the house, the spark of life slowly fades; the well runs dry, the horse refuses to eat, and eventually, even the light vanishes. What remains is a suffocating silence in total darkness. It is an uncompromising and hypnotic masterpiece about the sheer weight of human existence and the inevitability of decay.