Dao ma zei

I found out about this film via Mark Cousin's well regarded "The Story of Film: an Odyssey", when he outlined some of the strongest features of the 80s.

The Horse Thief is a strikingly shot immersion into the unique, isolated and overwhelmingly spiritual culture of traditional Tibet, a country of snow laden plains and remote agrarian village life.

The nominal plot focuses on Norbu, a thief who is excommunicated from his tribe, to live in the harsh Tibetan hinterlands with this wife and child. Even his elders disdain him, and appear to show no sympathy for his crimes.

The tribe worships a local mountain deity for providence, but during an outbreak of disease many animals and family members suffer, some terminally. Norbu's family is allowed back into tribal society although his penalty is death, and there appears to be no alternative in the mid winter Tibetan snowfields.

The film's plot is almost overshadowed by the cinematography and focus on Tibetan civilization; their religious rites, celebrations, trading and working life all feature throughout. Parts of the "story" are presented as a dreamy montage of dancers, elemental images and Tibetan masks, with Buddhist themes of death and rebirth enacted by the cast, which is one of the exceptionally interesting things about the movie.

Its not really an epic film, and the actual scripted dialogue is pretty sparse, but worth seeing especially if you have a projector or similar large-screen display.

Set in 1923 against the breathtaking Tibetan landscape, The Horse Thief describes the retribution visited upon a clan member who is stealing horses. With minimal plot or dialogue, it is essentially a meditation on the Tibetan's struggle for survival in a harsh and uncompromising environment. The film dramatizes both the everyday occurrences and the religious rituals that are part of the fabric of Tibetan life.

The simple tale involves Norbu (Rigzin Tseshang), a member of a clan, who is accused of stealing horses and temple goods to support his wife Dolma (Jiji Dan) and their adored young son Tashi (Jamco Jayang). To keep the clan cleansed of evil, Norbu and his family are ostracized and banished to assume the life of wanderers. Norbu and his family leave the clan but do not renounce their faith. Appealing for divine intervention to keep them alive, the family engages in Buddhist rituals such as turning the prayer wheels, masked ceremonial dances, and prostration to Buddha.

Ultimately, their nomadic existence takes a grim personal toll. At the point of starvation, Norbu has to eat the newly fallen snow to give him strength, and is forced to resume stealing to save his family from the cold winter. The conclusion is stunning in its elemental power.

Though I was deeply moved by Tian's despairing vision and awed by the film's gorgeous cinematography, I found The Horse Thief to be quite demanding to watch. The film moves very slowly with long, static shots during which the camera remains fixed for several minutes. Also, being unfamiliar with Tibetan culture, I sought more explanation of the significance of some rituals, for example, the grazing of sacred sheep and the dances using ceremonial masks. I feel, however, that The Horse Thief transcends specific cultural limitations and achieves a universal quality in its depiction of the importance of faith and the strength of family.

I would have liked to have seen The Horse Thief in the theater, and hear it spoken in the original Tibetan language (it was dubbed into Mandarin). Nonetheless, I am grateful for having received this authentic insight into Tibetan culture, something that is uncommon in these days of Chinese occupation. Watching this film was almost a furtive experience, like stealing a glimpse into a beautiful and haunting secret world and rediscovering what it means to be human.

After hearing Martin Scorsese declare Horse Thief as the #1 film of the 90s (actually released in 1987) when co-hosting the annual "Best of" show with Roger Ebert, I set out to see this film. Luckily, there was a copy available in the library. Unfortunately, the library would not allow me to take it home. So, I was stuck watching this film on a 10 inch screen television in a cramped cubicle with uncomfortable headphones crushing my ears. Obviously, this was not the way that Tian intended his film to be viewed.

Tian Zhuangzhuang's third feature, Horse Thief, is essentially dialogue-free and is rather slim on plot. The film is reminiscent of the silent-era when directors were capable of manipulating the camera to communicate their desired idea. Basically, the film centers on the banishment of Norbu (forcefully personified by Rigzin Tseshang in an astonishing debut), a local horse thief, and his wife and son. Norbu gives up stealing horses for his wife and sets out to find a more respectable profession. When times get rough, Norbu is confronted with the reality that he must steal again to save his family from the harsh, unforgiving winter.

Tian's film has a striking realistic quality to it that plays like a documentary. In one scene, we are given the chance to watch a ritualistic ceremony designed to please the mountain god. While this scene evokes awe, some scenes may be seen as quite offensive. For example, Norbu comes up behind an unsuspecting lamb and slits its throat. The viewer is forced to watch the animal writhe and thrash agonizingly struggling for its last breaths. This scene, although I cannot deny its accuracy and technical beauty, is distressing to watch. The reality of this scene is not achieved through use of mechanical animals and fake blood; it is achieved by the actual killing of a lamb for the production of this film. Aside from this painfully unpleasant section, Tian's cinematic mastery is thoroughly evident.

Because of the deficient viewing conditions, I was only able to catch a glimpse of Tian's overwhelmingly glorious cinematography: Norbu dolefully places his son's dead body in the middle of a snow-covered meadow for the gods to take. In deep focus, the camera slowly reveals Norbu's utter aloneness and emptiness. In this one shot, Tian has created cinematic perfection.

Among Chinese "Fifth Generation" film directors, the name Tian Zhuangzhuang might not sound as resounding as his classmates Zhang Yimou or Chen Keige, both internationally and domestically, principally because his two most famous works THE HORSE THIEF (1986) and THE BLUE KITE (1993) are both under heavy censorship for pluckily tackling the hot buttons, the Tibetan ethnic minorities and the adverse affect of the Culture Revolution, respectively. Tian's directorial endeavor has reached a standstill since 2009, after the flop THE WARRIOR AND THE WOLF (2009). With 11 features and 1 documentary under his bet, he, has since reinvented himself as an actor, giving consecutive affecting performances in two films made by female directors, Sylvia Chang's LOVE EDUCATION (2017) and her protégée Rene Liu's directorial debut US AND THEM (2018), awarded with coveted GOLDEN HORSE Awards nominations.

Made between Chen's groundbreaking YELLOW EARTH (1984) and Zhang's spectacular RED SORGHUM (1988), THE HORSE THIEF, already Tian's third feature, reverently lifts the veil of the myth around Tibet and deploys a cinéma-vérité guideline in peering through the mores of its denizens - mostly through their religious rituals (profuse with prayer wheels, floating prayers, as well as clinquant temples) and quotidian activities (a haunting living sheep burying sequence and the displacement caused by a plague) - and relishes in the sublime, pristine natural and architectural landscape, the seasonal changes in the Qingzang Plateau, the Roof of the World, from verdant green to an overwhelming snow white.

Opening and closing with authentic scenes of celestial burials, which signifies an ouroboric Buddhist transcendence, the film's elliptical narrative loosely hinges on the titular thief Norbu (Tseshang), whose contravention takes its toll when he and his nuclear family is punished into exile in 1923, bereavement and poverty will assail him and wife Dolma (Dan), even the blessing of pregnancy doesn't augur well for a family at the end of their tether (underpinned by a chthonic, eery traditional performance of masked deities watched by the couple). Yet, through his minimalist plot, Tian astutely points up the perpetuating conflict in Norbu's illicit métier and his indefatigable piety, who habitually allots a tranche of his haul to the Almighty in order to alleviate his sins, especially when the seeming reckoning is subjected to his young son, Tian masterfully conjures up a series of blue-tinted superimposed sequences manifesting the kowtowing couple's repentance, foreseeing the guilty-driven Norbu's ultimate fate.

Besides Hou Yong and Zhao Fei's mind-blowing photography, Qu Xiaosong's cavernous, otherworldly score is equally substantive in honing up the film's superlative aura of exotica and mystique, only the dubbed Tibetan dialogue sounds a tad dissonant, loud and out of synchronicity, although it is a small triumph since the original mainland theatrical release is histrionically dubbed in Mandarin at the behest of the harsh censorship. More of an ethnic reportage than a compelling exposé, THE HORSE THIEF is the living proof of Tian's humanistic aptitude and profound veneration to the ethnic heritage, not to mention he is also bestowed with a keen eye and a competent hand in finding divine beauty, whose oeuvre is in much exigency of rediscovery.

Big screen is the only place to see this masterpiece. As the last of the films viewed @ the Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit Film Theatre's Monday Night Series, Horse Thief was fitting to be viewed last: truly the best was saved till last.

A Detroit Free Press reviewer gave the film only 2 stars because of a "sorely needed script". The beauty of this film is exactly that lack of dialogue which leaves room to enjoy the visual feast that the director intended.

I am grateful that the film was allowed out of China at all and privileged to view the beauty of Tibetan culture and Buddhist monk rituals, the inside of a Tibetan temple with rows and rows of flickering candles, the tortured beauty of the mountainous region in summer, spring and winter and the painful, poignant and ultimately tragic tale of a man, his wife and children and their lives in a region of the world that some Americans might only see in the pages of National Geographic.