The Turin Horse, Tarr’s final film to date, is another of his allegories in which human existence is pared down to its barest essentials, with man’s battle against nature assuming apocalyptic dimensions. The qualities that really distinguish a Béla Tarr film, however, are almost exclusively cinematic, and The Turin Horse is no exception. Shot in suitably austere black and white in a mere 30 or so sequence shots, the film is an extraordinary technical and aesthetic achievement. A profound meditation on human endurance, the passage of time, and the inevitability of decay.

Notes by David O’Mahony