The Turin Horse (2011) review

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, staying in Turin, Italy, saw a horse getting whipped, clung to the horse to protect it and went insane - Tarr picks the story up from there, showing the mundane, agonizing lives of the man who owns the horse and lives with his daughter (he works, she gets water, they eat potatoes, he stares out the window, they sleep). The (intentional) monotony of the scenes is intended to highlight (to Tarr) the "heaviness of existence" and in its Akermanesque way does accomplish that, but it's also a little hollow, with little revealed about the father and daughter, almost nothing said about Nietzsche's writings and only a speech in the middle (by a neighbor) about the corruption of society to give a hint about Tarr's true intentions. At its core, this is a movie made by someone who believes 'the end' is near and there's no way to avoid it: it's sorrow for sorrow's sake - it may be fashionable to be fatalistic, but it's far more noble to keep fighting.