Of Horses and Men

A valley in Iceland. Farms within sight of each other, neighbours watching through binoculars, and horses. The film is made of several short stories: jealousy, drink, death, mating, and a man who climbs inside his horse to survive. Each section opens on a close up of a horse's eye. Benedikt Erlingsson writes and directs, in his first feature. The idea is to reverse the direction of looking. The events happen between people, but the camera keeps standing on the animal's side, and human behaviour looks as senseless as it would to something watching from outside. That is where the humour comes from, and the film makes no attempt to separate the ridiculous from the terrible. The Icelandic horse is not only the subject but the cultural ground: a horse that leaves the island is never brought back, and the breed has stayed pure for centuries. The relationship the film shows grows out of that closeness. It won best new director at San Sebastián and became Iceland's Oscar submission. Who it is for: viewers who like Nordic cinema, black humour, and films centred on the relationship between people and animals. Who it is not for: violence against animals and their deaths are shown directly, and some scenes are genuinely hard.