Jeremy Irvine in "War Horse."
A story of the unbreakable bond between unworthy man and noble beast, "War Horse," which opens Christmas Day, takes place in rural England and on the battlefields of France during the First World War, but it owes as much — or more — to movie history as to historical reality.
The British soldiers here are stiff-upper-lip God-and-king chaps straight from a wartime cinematic morale-booster. The colorful farmers and townspeople are photogenic "types" who would be at home in a John Ford film, such as "The Quiet Man" or "How Green Was My Valley." The occasional use of expressionistic color and what appears to be a forced perspective "no man's land" set suggest "Gone with the Wind," "All Quiet on the Western Front" and other sweeping sagas about the impact of war.
Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, "War Horse" begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse ...
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of war violence
Length: 146 minutes
Released: December 25, 2011 Nationwide
Cast: Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Lee Hall, Richard Curtis
One might think director Steven Spielberg doesn't trust his audience. He almost never fails to push his camera toward an awed or joyous face, to ensure we don't miss the heightened emotion. He choreographs his extras -- human and animal alike -- so they act in unison, so we can't miss their surprise: All soldiers rise at once when a "miracle" horse enters a trench; all horses raise their heads at the report of a fatal gunshot.
These are not signs of mistrust but — for better or worse — signatures of a style. It is the style of a man who collects Norman Rockwell paintings, in which every element in the frame is calculated to convey a typically wholesome and reassuring message. Even the gauzy shafts of light in a Spielberg film suggest the oversight of a higher power, so when darkness intrudes, when surprise and uncertainty appear, when sequences of bravura moviemaking mastery interrupt the cuteness, the emotional impact is intense.
"War Horse" is alternately inspired and forced, cornball and true. It may not be a masterpiece, but it's a welcome rarity: a "family" film likely to entertain audience members of all ages, and a movie that suggests that people of decency and integrity are not an endangered species.
Scripted by Richard Curtis ("Four Weddings and a Funeral") and Lee Hall ("Billy Elliot"), from a 1982 children's book by Michael Morpugo that also inspired the current Tony Award-winning Broadway play, "War Horse" begins in the shire of Devon on the southern coast of England, where a bright-eyed teenage "lad" named Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) witnesses the birth of a beautiful brown colt, with a white blaze on its forehead and four white "socks." (Spielberg is circumspect even when it comes to equine sex: He coyly hides the mother horse's lower body behind a plank of fencing during the birth process.)
To the delight of Albert and the distress of Albert's practical "mum" (Emily Watson), Albert's father (Peter Mullan) — a drunk with a "gimpy" leg — buys the now-grown "fancy" horse at auction, mainly to spite the other bidder, his landlord (David Thewlis). Albert names the horse Joey. With a "thick stubbornness that will lead him to insist on the impossible," Albert trains Joey to be a workhorse, but the boy works just as hard in the field himself. "You keep looking after Joey, he'll always be looking after you," mum affirms.
That line is just one of many that attest to Joey's specialness, and to the connection that can exist between human and animal. Albert calls Joey "my brother" and "the best of us," while a soldier calls the horse "my bonny boy." Joey also is a "strong, decent and very fine animal," we're told.
When war comes to England, Joey is bought by a proud young calvary captain (Tom Hiddleston), who rides him into battle in what may be the movie's most effective sequence, as Spielberg — working with his usual cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, and editor, Michael Kahn — cuts back and forth between the charging calvary soldiers at the rear of the attack and the empty horses further ahead that testify to the cost of the battle in human lives. (Another standout example of Kahn's cutting and Spielberg's staging occurs earlier, in a brief scene in which Albert's father tries to shoot Joey.)
The war takes Joey through various French, German and British hands, in episodes of variable impact. Joey is both pampered and yoked into servitude; occasionally, he is made to behave with essentially human understanding, as when he "volunteers" to pull a German cannon to spare his injured equine "friend," Topthorn. Inevitably, Albert, still searching for Joey, becomes a soldier, too.
"War horse," comments a soldier. "What a strange beast you've become." As the movie's trailer makes fairly obvious, people who can't stand such sad animal films as "The Yearling" and "Old Yeller" needn't fear "War Horse." What's harrowing here isn't so much on the surface but underneath the hide. Spielberg saves the film's most interesting moment for last. During the inevitable reunion, the Narracotts embrace, yet Spielberg never places them in the same frame as Joey, as one would expect. Nearby yet segregated in his own space, the horse appears wise, perhaps even proud, yet the moment is heartbreaking. He's like John Wayne in that doorway at the end of Ford's "The Searchers," a veteran of experiences no one else can understand, forever apart and alone.
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Comments » 1
sgtutvols#230217 writes:
Wow. Thanks for spoiling the ending, John.
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