L'étalon d'argent

Beautifully done movie. The landscape scenes are breathtaking. The horses are all gorgeous (esp. Thowra) and the music is haunting. The scenes with the mother and daughter sometimes interrupt the flow, but it's mostly horse footage. And yes Russell Crowe is a hunk as always.

Well, in my continuing quest to see every movie Russell Crowe was ever in, I stumbled across this little film. (As long as I'm disclosing biases, I might as well mention that I have not read Elyne Mitchell's novel.)

It is a film for children--specifically, girls ages 8-12 or so who love horses. And they will love it. Younger children may be disturbed by some of the content; these are wild horses trying to survive in the wild, in all weather and situations.

It's framed as a fable, with Elyne Mitchell (Caroline Goodall) writing a story for her daughter Indi (Amiel Daemion) about Thowra, the great silver brumby, and the Man (Russell Crowe) who wants to tame him.

It's meant to be a fable, which explains how all these wild horses are so beautifully groomed. The horses also occasionally seem to be deaf, since they fail to react at all to sounds that any horse would prick its ears at.

As a horse film, it's highly successful. We see lots of lovely horses, doing fascinating horse things. The horse part of the movie is perfectly developed.

The humans are more troublesome. I suspect that Mrs. Mitchell and her daughter were not characters in the book; adding them causes a fundamental shift in the relationships between the characters. Instead of relationships between Thowra and other horses (especially the Brolga, his archrival) and between Thowra and the Man, the most important relationships are those between humans (between the two Mitchells, between Indi and the various men who catch and tame brumbies) and between humans and nature, with the relationships among the horses and of the humans to the horses receding into the background.

Instead of a simple pair of conflicts--between Thowra and the Brolga (the natural challenge); between Thowra and the Man (the unnatural challenge)--we get instead a large number of relationships, which changes the entire dynamic.

Despite these problems, the new concept could have worked, if simplified a bit. The basic point is that both Indi and the Man love Thowra, and for the same reasons: he is beautiful, strong, proud, and free. However, because Indi loves Thowra, she wants him to remain free; because the Man loves Thowra, he wants to own and tame the horse.

Such a conflict could have provided ample opportunity for lessons on "listening to the bush" and on the difference and inherent contradiction between love and possession (etc., etc.).

In the film, however, the Mitchells dominate. Elyne gives her daughter lessons on nature and life, with the help of an injured kangaroo they find, which serves to teach that wild things belong in the wild, that if you truly care about something you give it its freedom--all lessons that could have been communicated via the story of Thowra. (I loved the kangaroo, but it wasn't necessary.) Meanwhile, the Man is underdeveloped, and sometimes demonized--which runs entirely counter to the purpose of the film. The Man is not evil, just obsessed.

The filmmakers undoubtedly decided to focus on the girl and her mother because that's their audience. A reasonable decision, and yet one which weakens the film.

Overall, a nice, solid horse film which should be very popular with its target audience.

Before Russell Crowe blew up big time in North America, he did a few peculiar little flicks in his homeland of Australia. A couple rowdy gang stories popped up, and then he appeared in a little seen film called The Silver Stallion, or The Silver Brumby, which means horse in down-under-talk. Horse flicks are a dime a dozen and can go either way, usually pinning their focus on a target audience of adolescent viewers. This one is more of a visual tone poem than any sort of grand planned narrative, letting the horses do most of the emoting and character work, with the humans showing up now and again to provide their side of the story. An Australian mother (Caroline Goodall) tells her daughter (Amiel Daemien) tales of the prince of the brumbies, a member of a feral tribe of horses who has been separated from his heard and must find a way back. A relentless outback Man (Crowe) is dead set on both capturing and taming the silver Brumby, a quest which leads him to the very precipice of desperation. The horse traverses mountains, plains and many acres of beautiful northern Australian countryside to reunite with his clan. The scenes with just horses are amazing when one considers just how tough it must have been to coherently get them all together and have them interact according to the shots which the filmmakers needed to get. Quite the achievement indeed. The cinematography is pure misty magic, with both animal and nature alike providing some truly unforgettable images on screen. Crowe is excellent, with a wild glint in his eye, quite committed to the character. There's an overarching and altogether mythic tone to this film that always left me in awe when I saw it as a youngster. One gets the sense of true lore unfolding in front of us, the camera and script creating a piece of celluloid that's purely entrenched in Australian storytelling, bringing it alive in the most visually impressive way possible. Very much worth your time, if you can track down a copy.

Unlike the other reviewers (it appears), I came to this movie after a long love affair with the original story*. I borrowed 'The Silver Brumby' off of a friends mother as a child, and read it six times through before handing it back. It is one of those stories that just captures the heart and the imagination, and is truly an Australian classic.

I was 12yo when the movie was released. Now, 11 years and many viewings later, I feel a little melancholy that while they did a wonderful job, they may have just missed the mark in some aspects. The subplot of Elyne Mitchell and her daughter Indi was never in the book, and I do feel it was ultimately unnecessary and more often than not disrupted the movies flow. The 'Man' was portrayed as to hard, almost possessed. True he was fairly obsessed by Thowra, but he also greatly respected him, and the bush in general. I also missed Storm, Thowra's bay half brother, who was such a large part in the story and a personal favourite of mine. It was bordering on being a bit sugary at times as well. On the other hand some scenes were just about perfect, like the pages of the book come to life before my eyes, and for that I'm very thankful. The soundtrack also is beautiful, and particularly haunting during the final chase.

There are other small changes that seem unnecessary to me, such as the blending of Golden's owner and 'the man on the black horse' into one person when in the book they were separate people, but I suppose they thought that children would get confused (a common, and often wrong, assumption from my experience) so they strove to simplify it as much as possible. Ultimately I feel that the story was simplified too much, therefore losing some of the depth and power of the original.

Over all the visuals were about perfect, the story surprisingly close to the original for a lot of it (unlike many other book to movie adaptations), the sense of magic and mystery quite well portrayed. You could really feel that the bush was almost a character in it's own right. After 11 years I still thoroughly enjoy watching it (unlike the total travesty of the cartoon series released in the late 90's which was mildly horrendous even by young children's cartoon standards).

As a book to movie adaptation I give it 5 out of 10. As a movie in it's own right, 7 1/2 out of 10.

*I'd urge any child, or adult who still loves a tales full of wonder, joy and excitement, to seek out the source material. There are 6 books in the original series, written from 1958 to 1973. 1. 'The Silver Brumby', 2. 'Silver Brumby's Daughter', 3. 'Silver Brumbies of the South', 4. 'Silver Brumby Kingdom', 5. 'Silver Brumby Whirlwind' and 6. 'Son of the Whirlwind'. There is also 'Moon Filly' which was written between numbers 4 & 5 and ties into the later books. From 1993 onwards she added more to the saga; 'Silver Brumby, Silver Dingo', 'Dancing Brumby', 'Brumbies of the Night', 'Dancing Brumby's Rainbow' and 'The Thousandth Brumby'. I don't think these later books quite match up to the earlier ones, but they are still most enjoyable and it is lovely to read about the later generations. Elyne Mitchell is also the author of many other books for both adults and children. I could not recommend her highly enough.

I usually have pretty low expectations for "children's movies" not to mention animal adventures. This film turned out to be a fabulous surprise in every way. Sure, I came to it solely to finish out my search for Russell Crowe films; but I came away extremely moved by both the story, the breathtaking visuals of Australia and the lack of heavyhandedness so usually present in these films. This film provided a mesmerizing, compelling film experience. Oh yeah...Russell looks absolutely gorgeous..... Try it...you'll be glad you did.