No ‘Horse’-ing around: Béla Tarr working on his last film

Here is a bit of good and bad news on Bela Tarr‘s next feature. Cineuropa.org reports that Tarr’s next — an Hungarian/Swiss/German/French co-production begins lensing next month for the next five weeks and the bad news is: this will be his last film. Other than a one line mention that The Turin Horse will be his last project, Hungary’s filmmaker will most likely showcase the period film in Cannes next May. On board are Czech Miroslav Krobot, actress Erika Bók (The Man from London) and Volker Spengler (A Year of 13 Moons).

Co-written by Tarr and Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the film is freely inspired by an episode that marked the end of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s career. On January 3,1889, on the piazza Alberto in Turin, a weeping Nietzsche flung his arms around an exhausted and ill-treated carriage horse, then lost consciousness. After this event – which forms the prologue to Tarr’s film – the philosopher never wrote again and descended into madness and silence. From this starting point, The Turin Horse goes on to explore the lives of the coachman (Krobot), his daughter (Bók) and the horse in an atmosphere of poverty heralding the end of the world.