The Mustang

Roman, long incarcerated and speaking to nobody, is assigned to an outdoor work programme: gentling captured wild horses and preparing them for sale. The horse he is given is at least as angry as he is. The film is not interested in the healing power of therapy. It is interested in seeing your own anger in another body: shouting at the horse, Roman hears his own past, and the programme works less because the animal calms than because the man recognises his own violence. The form uses few words. The passages between corral, cell and desert are long and the dialogue is short; the feeling is carried largely in bodies. The programme is real. The film draws on rehabilitation schemes running in several states in which inmates train wild horses, and it was shot at the former state prison in Carson City, Nevada, which closed in 2012. Robert Redford is among the executive producers. It is Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre's first feature and premiered at Sundance on 31 January 2019. Matthias Schoenaerts leads, with Jason Mitchell and Gideon Adlon in support. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet prison drama and films built on the relationship between an animal and a person. Who it is not for: anyone expecting redemption. The film clears nobody at the end and never lightens the weight of the crime.