The Turin Horse (15)

Bela Tarr, 154mins. Starring: Janos Derzsi, Erika Bok

Geoffrey Macnab
Thursday 31 May 2012 23:46 BST
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Brilliantly shot in black and white by Fred Kelemen, Bela Tarr's latest feature (possibly his final one if his own proclamations are to be trusted) is set in a rundown farmhouse in some post-apocalyptic wilderness.

The wind is always howling, elegiac music is heard on the soundtrack, but dialogue is spare to non-existent.

The characters are a father and daughter who seem to have strayed out of a Samuel Beckett play. They spend their days trying to get their recalcitrant horse to move and inching closer to despair.

The Hungarian auteur's gnomic, slow-moving storytelling style and grim absurdism demand patience but the formal mastery here is astounding.

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