Both Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Joseph Heller record scenes in which their protagonists witness a cabman whipping a horse without mercy , in Crime and Punishment and Catch-22, respectively. These scenes are seminal moments in the mental breakdowns of those characters: Raskolnikov is moved by this absurdity, which comes to him in a dream, to spare the life of the pawnbroker; however, once he finds out that the pawnbroker treats her sister like a slave, and that she will be alone the next day, this momentary reversion to normative ethics comes to a halt. Yossarian is wandering the streets of Rome in a phantasmagorical state and sees a horse being beaten; this is part of his final separation from the war effort, just before Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn realize they have to send Yossarian home. These scenes are homage to the last thing that Friedrich Nietzsche did before going insane , intervening between a cab driver and the horse that the driver is beating. Nietzsche did this in the city of Turin , it is also the inspiration if Bela Tarr's film The Turin Horse.
The film opens with a brief summary of Nietzsche's final sane deed and then moves to a shot of a decrepit horse dragging a cart down a road. This is just one of the lengthy, fluid takes in the movie that show the sheer artistry of the camera-work. However, in this film, the horse is not the one receiving the beating. Instead, it is the owner and his daughter. They are not beaten by literal truncheons or whips; instead, it is just the very nature of living that beats them down. There is no being, either famous or divine, who is willing to change things for the better for them. The six days that God took to create the world are mirrored in the six days over which this story unfolds.
The setting of this film is intriguingly vague. It could take place now; it could have taken place before the Industrial Revolution. There is no running water or electricity in the house, but this farmhouse could be the work of a people like the Amish. The only real significant mention of time is the father's declaration that he has lived in that house for 58 years. Time is clearly something that one serves , rather than observe. There are very few actual events in the movie , they live an ascetic life. The father and daughter have one potato each for their meals. The daughter helps her father put on his clothes, as his right arm does not work. She brings the water from the well up to the house. This soporific rhythm is disrupted by the arrival of the neighbor, who has come to buy brandy. His lengthy diatribe about the ways life has lost its moral center is one of the focal points of the film. Later, some Gypsies come by looking for water; after that, things go back to the routine.
Filmed in black and white, this film will quickly hypnotize most viewers. There is little that is visually appealing about this gray, gaunt world, although there are some memorable moments, as when the father points out that he no longer hears worms chewing their way through the wood, because he has reached the ability to concentrate through that noise to silence. This power of meditation is almost unheard of in the bustling times in which we live.
The sheer artistry of this film comes from its unrelenting dissidence about the emptiness of modern existence. By having father and daughter refuse to enter our century, the director intimates that our century is not worth having, because while the existence of, say, 160 years ago, lacked modern conveniences and aesthetics, it featured interpersonal relationships that go far deeper than any list of Facebook friends or cell phone contacts ever can. The lingering message is that, as long as we have striven to make a successful and wealthy society, we have done little to make life full and rich.
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The film opens with a brief summary of Nietzsche's final sane deed and then moves to a shot of a decrepit horse dragging a cart down a road. This is just one of the lengthy, fluid takes in the movie that show the sheer artistry of the camera-work. However, in this film, the horse is not the one receiving the beating. Instead, it is the owner and his daughter. They are not beaten by literal truncheons or whips; instead, it is just the very nature of living that beats them down. There is no being, either famous or divine, who is willing to change things for the better for them. The six days that God took to create the world are mirrored in the six days over which this story unfolds.
The setting of this film is intriguingly vague. It could take place now; it could have taken place before the Industrial Revolution. There is no running water or electricity in the house, but this farmhouse could be the work of a people like the Amish. The only real significant mention of time is the father's declaration that he has lived in that house for 58 years. Time is clearly something that one serves , rather than observe. There are very few actual events in the movie , they live an ascetic life. The father and daughter have one potato each for their meals. The daughter helps her father put on his clothes, as his right arm does not work. She brings the water from the well up to the house. This soporific rhythm is disrupted by the arrival of the neighbor, who has come to buy brandy. His lengthy diatribe about the ways life has lost its moral center is one of the focal points of the film. Later, some Gypsies come by looking for water; after that, things go back to the routine.
Filmed in black and white, this film will quickly hypnotize most viewers. There is little that is visually appealing about this gray, gaunt world, although there are some memorable moments, as when the father points out that he no longer hears worms chewing their way through the wood, because he has reached the ability to concentrate through that noise to silence. This power of meditation is almost unheard of in the bustling times in which we live.
The sheer artistry of this film comes from its unrelenting dissidence about the emptiness of modern existence. By having father and daughter refuse to enter our century, the director intimates that our century is not worth having, because while the existence of, say, 160 years ago, lacked modern conveniences and aesthetics, it featured interpersonal relationships that go far deeper than any list of Facebook friends or cell phone contacts ever can. The lingering message is that, as long as we have striven to make a successful and wealthy society, we have done little to make life full and rich.
Find more film reviews at HTTP://greatest-movies.net/