Des chevaux et des hommes

Saw this film at the Noordelijk film festival 2014 in Leeuwarden (NL). Beautiful landscapes with men/women looking after horses and riding on them, while at the same time very occupied with the other women/men in the village. The movie is carried by several intertwined story lines to keep the flow going, including all sorts of humorous and dramatic events.

The village population sees and knows everything that's going on with their neighbors, even watching more distant neighbors and their interactions by means of binoculars when line of sight allows. Much of this was exactly as I remember from my youth, having grown up on a farm in a very small village (750 people, 100 houses). There was one remarkable difference, however, namely that the horses in this film were treated very different in comparison with the cows I am more familiar with. I felt these horses to be more closer to humans than cows ever were in my remembrance.

Not all village life is a happy life, however, in spite of the romantic feelings we derive from adverts with green meadows filled with happy cows. It involves tedious manual labor in difficult circumstances, in good and bad weather, and long travel distances that cross unfriendly rocks and rivers. We had to witness two funerals in the process, something wherein the whole village comes together and sympathizes in the family's grief. Major events like rounding-up horses to be brought to the market when ready to be sold, also form opportunities where the whole village works together in taking the herd over the rocks and rivers and the vast fields in between, typically a task that can be completed only when everyone joins in and cooperates.

On a more frivolous note, we see hormones at work within horses as well as people. It is something that can unite as well as break up people or even families. Phenomena like this were more hidden in the village where I grew up (it was in the sixties, and maybe I was just ignorant and as youngster did not see the obvious at the time). Anyway, hormones in this village are prominently present and active, with a definitive influence on everyone's actions. We witness several actions frowned on by any church I know of. The whole village witnesses it, or at least hears about it, and certainly has an opinion in the matter.

As an example I can mention a hilarious scene where a price winning mare is being sired (is that the correct verb?) by a young stallion, while the owner of the mare is still sitting on its back.... This event involved lots of additional shame, as it happened while the proud owner was actually showcasing his newly bought mare. Everyone in the village saw it happening from close-by or via their binoculars. Yet I did not fully comprehend the aftermath of this intimate gathering of the two horses, who actually did nothing wrong while following the call of nature. I assume that the shame and being the talk of the town played an important role in the decision.

All in all, the landscapes, the inside view in the micro cosmos of an Icelandic village, with the horses as important protagonists together with their owners, it all mixes very well while showing dramatic as well as hilarious events. A lot of interesting things happen on screen in only 81 minutes, which is an achievement in itself. You don't get the chance to loose your attention while so many things are happening.

The one thing that Iceland has no shortage of, apart from ice that is, is scenery and director Benedikt Erlingsson makes great use of it in this strange tale that supposedly describes man's relationship with the horse but which lapses into the surreal often enough for us to wonder if Erlingsson has something else in mind. Indeed, after the scenery, it is the horses who are the real stars here, though if you are a horse lover, the few scenes where they are killed and mutilated by the good folk of Iceland, should give you pause, (though the humans don't come out of it too well, either). It's more like something you might get from the likes of Roy Andersson while on holiday and it's quirky enough to be of more than passing interest. It's also quite short.

Benedikt Erlingsson's first film, horses are a way of life in Iceland, and here they are honored for their compact bodies, ethereal faces, unique gaits, stamina, and for their endurance in a country not known for plush green hills and sunshine.

There is sly and delightful humor. The actors are on point. A bonus is that everyone who lives in this area obviously is totally at ease in the saddle. There was no need for stand-ins because what is seen is what happened during the filming.

The photography is exceptional, giving beauty to a vista of iron gray crags. It is an earthy tale of all too human humans.

Iceland has not, as for example other Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Sweden, a real film history. In the new century however the Icelandic film industry is slowly maturing and regularly Icelandic films reach a foreign audience. Since 1999 there is a yearly Edda film award in Iceland.

A difficulty in reviewing Icelandig films, at least in my opinion, is that the landscape in Iceland is so beautiful that it sometimes compensates for a mediocre film. It often requires some reflection to seperate these two elements.

"Of horses and men" is, as the title already indicates, about the relation between men and horses in Iceland. The film consists of a number of episodes and each episode starts with a close up of the eye of a horse with a man reflected in it.

The first epsisode is the most striking one, the one you will remember for the longest time and the one from which the filmposter is derived. A man goes visiting his female neighbour with romantic intentions. In Iceland the distance to your neighbour can be quite large, so he travels by horse. At the end of the visit it turns out that the horses have been much more decisive in pursuing their amorous intentions than the man himself.

Iceland is a sparsely populated land and so the relation between men and nature is more important than in more densely populated countries. Two years later an Icelandic film about the relationship between rams and men was released ("Rams", 2015, Grimur Hakonarson). Indicative for the growing populatiy of Icelandic cinema is the fact that in 2020 an Australian remake was made ("Rams", Jeremy Sims).

Bengt Erlingsson's 'Of Horses and Men' tells the story of a remote Icelandic village where people don't say much, but, as a series of vignettes show, have fairly important relationships with their animals. The tone is droll and, although it takes a bit of getting used to, the individual tales are actually quite amusing, as is the overall conceit of the film. It's not exactly high art, but it's definitely warmer than the bleak landscapes that form the film's backdrop might suggest.