February 24 is Purple Poppy Day in Australia, New Zealand and America and Nigel says it important we feature him in remembrance of the thousands of whaler horses that were sent from Down Under to fight in the Great War and other conflicts. He has been nominated by our wonderful Australian Ambassador Nigel Allsopp, President and Founder of AWAMO, the Australian War Animal Memorial Organisation. It is the same with life, and if you consider the big picture, all of us, men and beasts, have extraordinary good luck.Australia’s greatest war horse was Bill, but he was given the dubious title of Bill the Bastard because he was fierce and difficult to handle and refused to be beaten by anyone or anything into submission. But not included in the picture is the level of sheer hopeless tragedy that is everywhere just out frame. Spielberg is the master of an awesome canvas. Among the horses of World War I, it can only be said that Joey's good luck was extraordinary. I am reminded of " Schindler's List." Six million Jews were exterminated in the World War II, but in focusing on a few hundred who miraculously survived, Spielberg made his story bearable. I suppose it must be that way for us to even bear watching such a story. Spielberg ennobles Joey and provides an ending for the film that is joyous, uplifting, and depends on a surely unbelievable set of coincidences. Bresson makes no attempt to elevate the donkey its lot is the common lot of all dumb animals in a world of arbitrary cruelty. A famous film by Robert Bresson, " Au Hasard Balthazar," follows a humble donkey through years of good and bad times, and shows all of the events as implacable chapters in the book of its life. The narrative thread is supplied by Joey, who is such a helpless protagonist that watching his adventures becomes painful - especially, I suspect, for younger viewers.
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But it reduces the center of the film to a series of set pieces. There's one of those scenes of temporary truce when soldiers from both sides meet in No Man's Land to share wire-cutters and set the horses free.Īll of this is magnificent. Surely some of the best footage Spielberg has ever directed involves Joey and other horses running wild outside the trenches, galloping in a panic through barbed wire lines and dragging wire and posts after them as their flesh is cruelly torn. Yet war is no place for sentiment, and as an officer explains with brutal realism, a horse is a weapon and must either be used or destroyed. Joey meets a series of masters, most of them on both sides men who respected horses. Horses thrown into this satanic chaos were confused, terrified and sometimes driven mad. Surely few were worse for private soldiers trapped in the muddy, cold, desolation of the trenches. All of this is embedded in front-line battle footage as realistic as we saw in the landing at Normandy in Spielberg's " Saving Private Ryan." All wars are hell. Now begins a series of self-contained chapters in Joey's life, as the horse passes from British to German hands, has a respite on a French farm and then finds itself helping to drag a cannon much too big for the team. Drunk as usual, Ted sells the horse to the Army. But Albert and Joey bond, and Albert trains the horse to accept a collar and plow their stony fields. Rose is distraught: He was meant to bring home a plow horse at a low price and has purchased a sleek thoroughbred. Ted's eye falls on a handsome horse named Joey, and he determines to outbid Lyons for it, even if it means spending all the rent money. Lyons ( David Thewlis), the landowner, presses them for past-due rent.
We meet young Albert Narracott ( Jeremy Irvine), his usually drunken but not unkind father, Ted ( Peter Mullan), and his hard-working, loving mother, Rose (Emily Watson). The movie, based on a best-selling novel and a long-running London and New York stage production, begins on a small family farm in the English county of Devon.
Its message is a universal one, about the horror of war in which men and animals suffer and die, but for the animals there is no reason: They have cast their lot with men who have betrayed them. Its characters are clearly defined and strongly played by charismatic actors. "War Horse" is bold, not afraid of sentiment and lets out all the stops in magnificently staged action sequences. The performances and production values throughout the film honor that tradition. It is Spielberg's homage, I believe, to Ford and to a Hollywood tradition of broad, uplifting movies intended for all audiences. This footage, with the rich colors and dramatic framing on what is either a soundstage or intended to look like one, could come directly from a John Ford Western. A lone rider is seen far away on the horizon. The sky is painted with a deeply red-orange sunset.
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The closing shots of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" will stir emotions in every serious movie lover.
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