Wednesday 25 January 2012

War Horse

Steven Spielberg revisits war and his sentimental side with this big screen adaptation of War Horse, a much-loved book and now a much-loved play. It is a picaresque story following the adventures of a horse, Joey, who journeys through the Great War meeting a variety of characters on all sides of the fighting.

And therein lies the problem: the lead in this film is a horse.

Quite simply, it doesn't work. It is hard to get emotionally-invested in a film when the lead character has no story arc (because it is a horse) and cannot act (because it is a horse). That is not to say the horse does not perform when required and testament should be given to horse-whisperer Bobby Lovgren for training the horse to make all the right movements. But fun tricks do not constitute acting. 

Hitchcock once said 'Never work with children or animals' which might be going a step too far. Animals can serve a purpose in a film, especially as comic relief, with the most perfect and recent example of this being the dog from The Artist (look how awesome he is!). But you cannot rely on an animal to carry a film unless they are animated. 

Obviously, this is not a problem in the book because the horse is the narrator and the play uses such marvellous puppetry that the audience will never tire of the horse being on stage. But a film adaptation was always going to fail. The character and the spectacle of the other formats are lost and you are left remembering other farcical attempts at getting animals to act: Homeward Bound, Cats and Dogs, Free Willy, Beethoven and a dozen naff adverts. Who would have associated Spielberg with such company?

Aside from that chief flaw, War Horse is everything you would expect from a Spielberg film. His well-honed lens captures World War I every bit as beautifully and horrifically as he captured World War II in Saving Private Ryan. Scene after scene is instilled with Spielbergian touches, whether it is executions masked by the passing of a windmill blade or wide shots slowly revealing piles of dead horses. And Spielberg works with the best so audiences can behold Janusz Kaminski's stunning cinematography and treat their ears to another swelling, emotional score from maestro John Williams.

Due to the picaresque format, characters flit in and out for short stretches of time so they have limited or rushed story lines. This is hardly surprising considering Richard Curtis (who owns the patent for cramming in as many character-types as possible into his scripts) co-wrote the screenplay. Consequently, many great actors are reduced to near-cameos: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston,  David Thewlis, The Reader's David Cross to name but a few. Nevertheless, Niels Arestrup brings a lot of heart to the film as a protective grandfather whilst newcomer Jeremy Irvine impresses as Joey's trainer.

It is not surprising that this has been overlooked by the award ceremonies. It is essentially a pastiche of World War I sketches and an animal is hardly a lead capable of uniting such disparate elements. That said, it is still a Spielberg film and that is always a good reason to go to the cinema.

★★


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