How many good movies do you know where horses play the main part? If you forget Warhorse for a moment (a movie which I found quite manipulative and disappointing) you probably van only think of movies where a young girl has to save a horse. Enough reason for me to approach this movie carefully as I didn’t know if this was a tame horse or a wild stallion.
The movie is set in a valley in Iceland where a tiny community has a close relationship with their horses. The animals are their pride, like the opening of the movie shows, but also a source of income as tourists visit there to ride them. Various short stories are told, which all start with a closeup of the eye (usually of a horse) and show how the people treat each other and what the role of the horses is in that. Emotions like love, shame, pride and hate are all shown and frequently have shocking consequences. toont de film hoe de mensen met elkaar omgaan en welke rol de paarden daarin spelen. Although the movie mentions that no horses were hurt during the movie there are various scenes which make you doubt that as there are some shocking moments. So it isn’t a movie you would bring your daughter to because she just started riding horses.
Of Horses and Men is comedy which also has a dark side. It shows the beauty of the Islandic landscape and its horses. The focus is on its small community where the horses are passive witnesses. The way in which various events take place are later mirrored or repeated in a different story. We are of course dependent on nature and are actually not that different from horses is a message which it succeeds bringing across. It doesn’t surprise me that this was the movie Iceland decided to send to the Oscars last year, even though it didn’t manage to win a prize.
