Sunday 22 June 2014

Review of Of Horses And Men (2014)

Benedikt Erlingsson's "Of Horses and Men" is an Icelandic film about just that. A chronicle of life on a small, secluded island, for 81 minutes it quietly observes the behaviours of man viewed through the prism of his treatment of horses. It's an odd premise for a film that befits what can only be described as a very odd film. You know when your first scene details a man's attempts to train his horse, only to have it all unravelled when another horse decides to get it on with that horse, whilst that man is sat atop it... Yeah. I laughed. It's like an arthouse Tom Green movie.

It's from here that the film essentially delivers a series of vignettes about our connection with horses and what it says about us as a species. We get to know a few key faces, such as Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson's proud Kolbeinn, the poor man on top of the horse at the beginning. Juan Camillo Roman Estrada stars as Juan (IMDb tells me this is his first film, perhaps his last), and he is the centre of the film's best sequence; fearfully navigating the snow as the sun begins to set, and desperate not to die, he finds himself with no other option than to cut his horse open and get inside. It could have been troubling, and it nearly is, but Erlingsson shoots it in a respectful, rather beautiful way, understanding of the fact that this is purely survival. Certainly Juan doesn't seem to be enjoying it that much (he only got into horse-riding to impress a girl he likes). and it represents the film at its best; thoughtful, funny, bizarre and strangely hypnotic. You can't help but look on in fascination and horror.

The film at it's worst, then... Sometimes, at certain moments, there seemed to be a misanthropic tendency to the film which rubbed me up the wrong way. This leaves me in a quandary as a reviewer because I don't think the film is, actually, that misanthropic. It certainly seems to be making a statement about how man is a bit stupid compared to the simple elegance of a horse, but by the end we can see some investment in the happiness of the people on the island. Why did I detect the misanthropy? It came through mainly in the sequences where a man rides his horse into the sea to buy some particularly strong alcohol, ignores the warnings of the seller, drinks it all and dies, and in another sequence where a man tries to cut down a barbed wire fence, it springs back and blinds him.

Why did these sequences bother me? Alas, I do not know. They are good cinema, blackly funny in a way the film invests itself in being, very effectively, although they do seem to dwell on human stupidity in a major way. They signalled a worry, I suppose, that the film was going to be a portrait of dumb people doing dumb things for 81 minutes (they all occur quite early on), detailing a sort of anthropophobic tract. Luckily, the film doesn't pan out that way, and I imagine I'd enjoy it more on a second viewing.

These little niggles aside, the film is very very good. The cinematography is beautiful, and director of photography Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson has created a certain epic feel to the film, with wide open vistas, a well-used 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and an unhurried composition. It's a little slow, but the film wants us to feel the same rhythms, longeurs and repetitions that the people on the island do. I can't fault that. 

I recommend this film, with the caveat that I had trouble embracing it. I had by the end, and on reflection my initial criticisms are unfounded, but yet they linger. I guess all I can say is that I would gladly see this film again, and know during the second run-through that the film isn't going to turn out in the way that I was initially scared of it being. This is an odd angle to take, but, I guess that's fitting, because as I have said and as I'm sure you have gathered, "Of Horses and Men" is a supremely odd film.

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