BAFICI recommendation: Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse

My latest viewing at the Bafici, 'The Turin Horse' is, in its own very particular way, an extraordinary and impacting film.

Last night I saw Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse at the Hoyts Abasto, as part of the final weekend of the fabulous Bafici – the Buenos Aires Internatinal Independent Film Festival. 

I was just thinking about how rare it is for me to see these beautiful, artistically ambitious films on the big screen–and what a different experience it is from watching on a computer at home. Buenos Aires is a major city that gets some good art-house movies, but simply not enough. There are too few art cinemas and they're not anywhere close (at least 45 minutes away, requiring multiple forms of transportation) from where I live. I used to have an Atlas a few blocks from me but it shut down over six months ago. Most days I don't have the time to see that film on that particular weekend, the only one it's showing.

The reliable place to watch good art cinema is the MALBA cinematheque. But that's not very close to me either, and many of their scheduled films just show one time and if you can't make it, then you just miss it forever.

Speaking of MALBA, they'll be showing the recently-found extended version of the great German expressionist film Metropolis this coming plus the following weekend (four screenings total). It's a can't-miss for film lovers, especially those who cherish the silent era.

So, seated at the theater last night, I felt so giddy that I was about to see a Béla Tarr film happen on this huge screen right before my eyes. That all I had to do was sink into my seat and watch. I had a perfect view, smack in the middle, about seven rows from the front. 

The Turin Horse is a movie that requires a longer review. One could speak at length on the "experience" of its viewing, on how it flows effortlessly and sucks you into that repetitive world of  unfliching routine and discomforting austerity. Of emptiness–because my insides begin to empty out when I watch Tarr. I begin to let go of what makes me feel safe, because he shows me that it's merely an illusion. So there's the other world to which you let yourself be taken, if you are prepared to enjoy a film by this director.

But then there's the lack. There's what's missing and what, in the final moments, you might wish had been done slightly differently. I think the first two hours are strong and the last half hour a bit shaky, not knowing how to conclude itself, to wrap up a story that was never much of a story but more of a parable told with haunting images. It's a smart last scene and it ties in well with the symbol and notion of the Turin Horse, embodiment of some kind of hopelessness and desperation. But of what? There doesn't need to be "of what?" in Tarr's world because there is too much and almost anything could serve as that dark, motivating force. It's very dark, literally and figuratively, and it leaves one with little faith in the world. For me, I'm only thankful for the story tellers and the image-makers when I'm done with a Tarr film. After this one I was thankful for those things again, but this time also for the Bafici, which let me have my story and its images but in a big dark room, on a big screen, seated with hundreds of others–just like they were meant to be experienced.

I have one film left: Le Quattro Volte by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino.

What have been your favorite films at the Bafici this year? Post below!