MovieChat Forums > A torinói ló (2011) Discussion > Why is this rated so high?

Why is this rated so high?


I am honestly just curious why this is rated so high, and why a seemingly small group of arthouse (I think) people are putting this movie on a pedestal.

When I watched it, I thought I had stumbled into a Russian drama from the 1960s - not because the movie was in black and white, but because of the atmosphere and feeling you take away from it, very downtrodden and depressing.

Personally I have watched a lot of movies all the way from early 1900s to today, and I love foreign movies. However this didn't sit well with me, it was just two people (and in some scenes a few more) eating potatoes and sleeping... for two and a half hours!

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it's rated so high because people like it


I'm proud to say my poetry is only understood by that minority which is aware.

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Umm, perhaps because it is rather exceptional??

Yes yes, you accused the film of being stuck in a routine - art imitates life, perhaps?...


"POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHO PUNISH BAD CINEMA!!!"

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[deleted]

I thought the cinematography and camerawork were astonishing, as good as anything I've ever seen (it was my first film by Tarr). I have a sleep disorder and often fall asleep during slow films if I'm not well rested, but I never dozed for an instant during this one, and the first time I checked to see how much time had passed, far more had gone by than I'd guessed. That's how entranced I was with the visuals.

You have to be open to film as primary visual art supplemented by a story, instead of the other way around.

The story is indeed minimal, and what there is of it, of course, is unrelentingly bleak (though not devoid of sly black humor), but it was such a great visual experience that I had no trouble giving at a strong B+ right off the bat. And after a day or two, it had grown in my mind to a strong A-.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

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You have to be open to film as primary visual art supplemented by a story, instead of the other way around.


Couldn't agree more.

ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image

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It's funny, just a week or two ago I was thinking about this movie (out of the 300 I've seen in the last three years) and about how utterly memorable it remained. So I just looked at my 2012 film ranking and saw that I had already not only bumped it up to A, but put it ahead of a couple of other movies with that grade (Barbara and The Cabin in the Woods) -- it's gone up from about #35 to 40 on the year to 15 (I like essentially every kind of movie -- how many people gave an A to both this and The Avengers?).

And I just changed my grade here from 8/10 to 9/10. And I now know that I want to see Satantango and other films by Tarr. He's a singular visionary.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

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Agreed. I just rewatched it a couple of nights ago and was pleased to find your post on this board.

ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image

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how many people gave an A to both this and The Avengers?


I gave this 2/10 and Avengers 3/10 ;) - both were terrible movies, but in their own way. This is just dull and pretentious as f*k, and Avengers was just stupid and unsuspenseful as f*k.

But Cabin in the Woods is a 9/10, by the way.


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Of course they cannot possibly be terrible movies simply because you hated them. How and why does your personal reaction somehow negate that of the many other opposite ones?

I don't like the taste of white wine or of mushrooms. Should I tell them the people who love them that they're wrong?

Somebody finding this movie to be boring is not surprising, for reasons already discussed in this thread. Telling us that you had that reaction ... really not interesting.

Now, hating The Avengers is more interesting, and I certainly hope that if you expressed that reaction on the Avengers board, you explained why. It's almost always interesting to compare different reactions to films and see why it worked differently for different people. But the different reactions are not in the film. They're in your brains. That should be incredibly obvious.

Stop thinking that your reaction says anything objective about the film. It doesn't work that way. You are describing the combination of the film and your brain, and you're actually talking much more about the latter than the former.

End of standard rant. (And no, "of course I realize these are just my opinions" doesn't work as a defense. How you talk about film reflects the way you think about film, and until you abandon the absurd notion that your reaction to a film is entirely about the film, you can't talk about film usefully.)

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

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Dude, this is not some serious debate-site. This is the IMDb.

So, "of course I realize these are just my opinions" ;)

But, if I have to elaborate on your previous message, solely directed at me for some reason (even though I was just commenting on the OP's question and the other guy who started to talk about the Avengers), then I'll say this:

Of course they cannot possibly be terrible movies simply because you hated them. How and why does your personal reaction somehow negate that of the many other opposite ones?


Well, yes and no.... Since EVERYTHING is (theoretically) objective - or at least everything regarding movies - my opinion (and yours for that matter) actually *does* count against the grand total of opinions.

I guess you just have +1 for the "This movie is great"-pile, and I have +1 for the "This movie is garbage"-pile. But nobody has the definitive answer to "Is this movie good?", as it's completely relative, depending on which context (ie. whose taste) we're placing it in! And in this case, it's an OP who - like myself - doesn't quite understand the high ratings for this film. But yeah, as somebody else just wrote (and I'm paraphrasing now, as I don't really have time nor the desire to check for the exact quote), "some people just like pretentious art-movies, while others don't!". It's as simple as that.

I don't like the taste of white wine or of mushrooms. Should I tell them the people who love them that they're wrong?


No - but if they ask you, of course! This was a thread with an open question, and I just chipped in. Personally, I hate green peppers, but I don't got tell everyone about it, unless they want me to eat it... same as this.

Somebody finding this movie to be boring is not surprising, for reasons already discussed in this thread. Telling us that you had that reaction ... really not interesting.


You don't say? Well, again, I was just chipping in, so the OP knew he wasn't alone on this subject.

Now, hating The Avengers is more interesting, and I certainly hope that if you expressed that reaction on the Avengers board, you explained why. It's almost always interesting to compare different reactions to films and see why it worked differently for different people. But the different reactions are not in the film. They're in your brains. That should be incredibly obvious.


Haha, no of course I didn't... that thread is already chock-full of Marvel-nerds who have written page up and down about that *beep* movie... and there's also a quite good Youtube-video called something like "Everything Wrong With The Avengers in [x number of] Minutes", which you could check out if you want to. My reasons for not liking it are pretty much the same as everybody else who disliked it. It's probably the most generic and dull superhero-movie ever made. I actually found Albert Pyun's "Captain America" (1990) more interesting!

Stop thinking that your reaction says anything objective about the film. It doesn't work that way. You are describing the combination of the film and your brain, and you're actually talking much more about the latter than the former.


Oh really? So then please tell me, what exactly is it that EVERY OTHER HUMAN ON THE PLANET does, when they watch movies? You're telling me that it's NOT a combination of the film + their brains?? LOL

End of excessively long reply-rant. I probably should've just ignored your post, but wth... NBA Fantasy-season is over, so this might give me some fun over the summer ;)

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You have to understand the philosophical context.

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Not even -- you just have to appreciate the visual art beautiful film making.

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I just watched the film and rated it 10/10 because I have rarely seen anything like this, except for Bela Tarr's other films, and maybe Eraserhead from David Lynch... This was almost like "Jeanne Dealmann" or other attempts at capturing the day to day drudgery of life, but at the same time, it is like "Eraserhead" because inexplicably, the wind never stops, the horse will not eat, and the lights including natural light go out. Plus, the entire opening sequence seemed so epic when it was just a horse driving a carriage home... This is the kind of film that changes perceptions and more people need to see it in my very humble opinion. and of course, feel free to disagree!

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it's so powerful and affect me , I rated 10.

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it is not rated so high, 7,6 is too low for turin horse, i rated 10 and the reason is not because it is an art movie,definitely it is not an art movie! maybe this is a reaction or response to art movies. This kind of people are still living on earth in the year 2013 and they are too much. also you have to listen carefully what Bernhard says, that speech was very important, that speech explains world's *beep* situation(wars,devolution,injustice etc.) . Also the Nietzche story is so interesting, if you do paralel relation between two horses(nietzche's and hungarian farmer's)and think they are the same horses the story goes to another story. I understand why people say this is a bad movie, but this is not a bad movie.

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There is no such thing as arthouse ppl., or should we put those reading classic literature or poems into a similar group? Some express through genre elements, others via personal film language, Mr. Tarr's B&W vision is obviously very minimalistic and visually speaking. It's his apocalypse flick and it's pure and junk free, also somewhat comical with it's dumb ppl. not "getting it": it's over.

Great swansong!

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