Monday, January 9, 2012

War Horse (2011)

Director: Steven Spielberg. Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, David Thewlis. 146 min. Rated PG-13. Drama/War.

A thoroughbred horse is trained by a youngster, but then falls into different hands on both sides of World War I. Simple story with a somewhat contrived ending (with Spielberg almost going back into Saving Private Ryan territory to show the brutality and idiocy of war), but most prominently, this is a movie from a director who refuses to come down from his highest rank among filmmakers. Every panorama, every angle, every camera movement exudes with cinematic beauty and perfection in direction. Even if it had no storyline, War Horse would still be just a pleasant movie to "see".

Mo says:

2 comments:

  1. I was wondering why battle scenes and overally war scenes in this movie were so plainful ....more dreadful than most war movies have ever been seen ...I thought except Spielberg who has a history of creating highly emotional war scene already , another point I got is : we are looking the story from main character which is a horse...and looking to disasterous events from an innocent ,pure and neutal eye is really able to provide such a feeling and strong impression...same as, a looking of a kid to violence & crime.. tragic effects of such scenes from this pov would dramitically mulitiply but honesty nobody is able to do that with audience and makes them look at the war from a horse POV except Steven!.. sounds funny but true.

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  2. Maryam,

    As a followup to your point-of-view, I believe the best shots were the ones following the horse through the bunkers. I couldn't believe my eyes how well these scenes were done! I think Spielberg wants to boast how good he still is. And he really is.

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