Des chevaux et des hommes

Loved this film - from the quirky humor, great acting, touching love stories, Icelandic lifestyles, suspense and, the cinematography is stunning A film you will remember.

This is a film quite unlike any other. Darkly comic. I was transported to the remote community in Iceland and into the lives of the eccentric and amusing characters who lived there. The scenery is stunning and the music and the Icelandic ponies beautiful. Some horrible things happen but somehow acceptable in the extreme conditions. . In this strong community, distances don't prevent everyone knowing everyone elses' secrets. They look out for each other to survive but being human have their rivalries and conflicts. I found the film compelling and beautiful in spite of the events and for the duration shared in another way of life in a beautiful but harsh environment.

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.

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.

Benedikt Erlingsson's loosely connected series of black comedy horse vignettes is a strange sort of creature. Visually striking and certainly contains quite a few striking visual talking points, but the central thrust of the narrative is rather trampled over by the other mini narratives which beyond adding a dash of grim slapstick don't contribute much. Nice to see those beautiful landscapes, the lovely horses running through the fields, those fine jumpers and the great Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson in a central role but it doesn't function as well as Benedikt's equally beautiful Women at War from a few years after.