{ "id": "epswe5xhv6", "slug": "the-turin-horse", "title": "The Turin Horse", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2010-to-2014", "label": "Drama films 2010 to 2014", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2010-to-2014" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2010-to-2014.psychological-and-social-drama-films", "label": "Psychological and social drama films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2010-to-2014.psychological-and-social-drama-films" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Eastern Europe · 2001 to 2020: Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "path": [ { "id": "geo.eeu", "label": "Eastern Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001", "label": "Eastern Europe · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Turin Horse (A torinói ló) is Béla Tarr's 2011 black-and-white final feature, co-written with László Krasznahorkai, following the carter and horse from Nietzsche's 1889 Turin breakdown anecdote over six apocalyptic days; it won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix at Berlin 2011.", "snippet": "The Turin Horse (A torinói ló) is Béla Tarr's 2011 black-and-white final feature, co-written with László Krasznahorkai, following the carter and horse from Nietzsche's 1889 Turin breakdown anecdote over six apocalyptic days; it won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix at Berlin 2011.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2010-to-2014.psychological-and-social-drama-films", "markdown": "# The Turin Horse\n\n**The Turin Horse** (*A torinói ló*) is a 2011 black-and-white art film directed by [Béla Tarr](https://www.edgepedia.org/bela-tarr), co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky and co-written with the novelist [László Krasznahorkai](https://www.edgepedia.org/laszlo-krasznahorkai), which imagines what became of the horse whose whipping in Turin in 1889 reputedly triggered [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://www.edgepedia.org/friedrich-nietzsche)'s mental breakdown.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) A Hungarian-German-French-Swiss co-production, it won the Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear) and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival, and Tarr announced that it would be his final feature film.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316540/awards/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original title | *A torinói ló*; black-and-white Hungarian-German-French-Swiss feature, 2011[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) |\n| Directors | Béla Tarr, co-director Ágnes Hranitzky; screenplay by Tarr and László Krasznahorkai[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) |\n| Key crew | Cinematography Fred Kelemen, music Mihály Víg, editing Ágnes Hranitzky[4](https://nfi.hu/en/films/the-turin-horse.html) |\n| Cast | János Derzsi (Ohlsdorfer, the carter), Erika Bók (his daughter), Mihály Kormos (Bernhard), with the horse Ricsi[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) |\n| Runtime | Listed as 149 minutes by the National Film Institute; other sources give 146 or 154–155 minutes[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) • [5](https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/films/11127/) |\n| Awards | Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Prize, Berlin 2011; Golden Camera 300 for Fred Kelemen at Manaki Brothers; Hungary's submission for the Academy Awards[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316540/awards/) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) |\n| Status | Tarr's declared final feature film[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and structure\n\nThe film follows six days in the life of a carter named Ohlsdorfer (János Derzsi) and his daughter (Erika Bók) on an abandoned farm in a windswept wilderness. Their routine is fixed: they get up, get dressed, drink pálinka, draw water, feed the livestock, eat boiled potatoes, and go to bed, while outside the wind blows ceaselessly.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) The routine breaks when the horse falls sick: it refuses to move, and later will neither eat nor drink. The well's water vanishes, the stove's embers go cold, and by the sixth day the wind, too, has stopped blowing.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) Odd travelers, driven by the raging wind, arrive at the door seeking sanctuary.[5](https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/films/11127/)\n\nThe National Film Institute describes the film as a reversed story of creation and the closing act of Tarr's oeuvre, in which time goes on but does not pass and the protagonists do not act but vegetate.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html) In one emblematic sequence, the Ohlsdorfers pack everything onto the horse-drawn cart and set off beyond the horizon, only to reappear moments later and return to the spot they left from, accepting that there is nothing for them beyond the hill.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html)\n\n## The Nietzsche anecdote\n\nThe film is framed by a story about the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. On January 3, 1889, in Turin, Italy, Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Alberto, sees a cab driver whipping a stubborn horse that refuses to move, and ends the scene by throwing his arms around the horse's neck, sobbing.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) According to the prologue's account, he then lies motionless and silent for two days before uttering his last words, and lives another ten years silent and demented, cared for by his mother and sisters.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) The prologue closes on the question the film takes up: of the horse, we know nothing.[6](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-turin-horse)\n\nTarr himself treated the horse as a real presence rather than a symbol. Asked whether the story was a parable, he answered, \"No, it's not a parable. This is a horse who has history, who has background, who is definitely somebody,\" adding that the film's horse is female and that in Hungarian *torinói* with a small 't' simply means \"from Turin.\"[7](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/this-definitely-closing-movie-because-i-collected-everything-bela-tarr-his-final-film-turin-horse)\n\n## Origin of the project\n\nThe idea dates to 1985, when Krasznahorkai gave a reading in a Hungarian theater and closed with the text that became the film's prologue, ending on the question \"What happened to the horse?\" Tarr said he and his collaborators wondered how to do something with that question, since everyone listens to the Nietzsche story for Nietzsche's sake and nobody listens for the horse.[7](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/this-definitely-closing-movie-because-i-collected-everything-bela-tarr-his-final-film-turin-horse) The screenplay drew on Krasznahorkai's essay *Latest in Turin* and the key monologue from the narration *Isiah Came*.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html)\n\n## Style\n\n**Long takes and repetition.** Tarr's trademark long takes give the film its distinctive texture; the average shot length has been calculated at 229.2 seconds, against roughly 2 to 3 seconds for a contemporary action film.[8](https://chlotrudis.org/review/turin/) [Screen time](https://www.edgepedia.org/screen-time) typically matches the duration of the actions shown, with the narration selective in showing and repeating certain events, so that quotidian activities appear in plain chronological order without explanatory framing.[9](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509208.2025.2465008) Scholars have read the long takes and recurring images as a reflection of the temporal structure of Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence.[10](https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/filmvisio/article/1660095)\n\n**Sound and light.** Repetitive music by Mihály Víg, the constant roar of the wind, and sparse dialogue create what one analysis calls a music-and-noise symphony that takes the place of dialogue in the film.[11](https://www.delmar-circa.com/_files/ugd/467855_c971c5c7431942459ce713f2a3390c22.pdf) Lighting becomes a central effect only in the last minutes, when, according to the story, all light is gone: the scenes take place in near darkness, with just enough light to render the characters as light-gray shadows in gray darkness.[11](https://www.delmar-circa.com/_files/ugd/467855_c971c5c7431942459ce713f2a3390c22.pdf)\n\nThe production was as deliberate as the result: rehearsals for the first scene lasted nine months, and the actor János Derzsi called it the most difficult Tarr film.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html)\n\n## Reception and place in Tarr's career\n\nThe film premiered in competition at Berlin in 2011, where it won the Jury Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize; it was later Hungary's official submission for the Academy Awards.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316540/awards/) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/) Critics received it as a summation of Tarr's career. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 87% critics score, with a critics consensus calling it \"uncompromisingly bold and hauntingly beautiful\"; Metacritic records a metascore of 80 based on 15 critic reviews.[12](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_turin_horse) • [13](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-turin-horse/) Reviewers compared its father and daughter to figures from a [Samuel Beckett](https://www.edgepedia.org/samuel-beckett) play and described the film as a parable about duration and endurance rather than event and emotion.[5](https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/films/11127/) • [12](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_turin_horse)\n\nTarr had announced before the premiere that this would be his last film, telling an interviewer it was \"definitely a closing movie because I collected everything.\"[7](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/this-definitely-closing-movie-because-i-collected-everything-bela-tarr-his-final-film-turin-horse) After its release he moved to Sarajevo, where he founded the film academy film.factory, and he continued working as a producer and teacher; he died at the age of 70.[14](https://apnews.com/article/7d25dccc232837db07a61d7d4e9b2a50) Because the director declared he would never make another film, the National Film Institute notes that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to evaluate The Turin Horse as a standalone work rather than as the endpoint of his oeuvre.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Turin Horse, National Film Institute of Hungary](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-turin-horse.html)\n2. [The Turin Horse, Film Society of Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-turin-horse1/)\n3. [The Turin Horse (2011) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316540/awards/)\n4. [The Turin Horse, National Film Institute of Hungary (full credits)](https://nfi.hu/en/films/the-turin-horse.html)\n5. [The Turin Horse, Independent Cinema Office](https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/films/11127/)\n6. [The Turin Horse review, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-turin-horse)\n7. [\"This is definitely a closing movie because I collected everything\": Béla Tarr on his final film, Sight and Sound](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/this-definitely-closing-movie-because-i-collected-everything-bela-tarr-his-final-film-turin-horse)\n8. [The Turin Horse, Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film](https://chlotrudis.org/review/turin/)\n9. [Slow Cinematic Atmosphere: Developing an Enactivist-Phenomenological Theory for Contemplative Spectatorship, Quarterly Review of Film and Video](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509208.2025.2465008)\n10. [Torino Atı: Nietzsche Felsefesinin Sinematografik Bir İfadesi, Filmvisio](https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/filmvisio/article/1660095)\n11. [On \"The Turin Horse,\" delmar-circa](https://www.delmar-circa.com/_files/ugd/467855_c971c5c7431942459ce713f2a3390c22.pdf)\n12. [The Turin Horse, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_turin_horse)\n13. [The Turin Horse Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-turin-horse/)\n14. [Hungarian director Béla Tarr dies at 70, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/7d25dccc232837db07a61d7d4e9b2a50)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2010 to 2014 › Psychological and social drama films*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Turin Horse\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Turin Horse](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Turin Horse\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-turin-horse. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Turin Horse is Béla Tarr's 2011 black-and-white final feature, co-written with László Krasznahorkai, following the carter and horse from Nietzsche's 1889 Turin breakdown anecdote over six apocalyptic days; it won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix at Berlin 2011." }