Steven Spielberg’s equine bildungsroman has been called
old-fashioned, and it is, I suppose, to a point. Because it’s essentially about
the very idea of old-fashioned-ness itself. It starts off in a kind of bucolic,
poetic reverie in the lush countryside of Devon; the first scenes are admirably
wordless, as boy (Jeremy Irvine) meets horse. Then it settles, for a little
while at least, into a kind of particularized geniality that has led many to
recall John Ford films like The Quiet Man and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
Seemingly uncinematic problems -- such as whether a thoroughbred can be made to
plow a field, or whether a kind-hearted, drunk farmer with a limp (Peter
Mullan) will be able to make rent -- are filmed with a wide-eyed momentousness.
Some will find this hard to take, but that’s what epics do: They make everything bigger and bigger until the whole world seems monumental, and then they force us to choose what’s important. And if War Horse seems old-fashioned at first, that’s because it has to be. It’s about how the old world was torn to shreds by the new -- which is, after all, the ultimate story of World War I.
Some will find this hard to take, but that’s what epics do: They make everything bigger and bigger until the whole world seems monumental, and then they force us to choose what’s important. And if War Horse seems old-fashioned at first, that’s because it has to be. It’s about how the old world was torn to shreds by the new -- which is, after all, the ultimate story of World War I.
