Warhorse

            Wow! Two Stephen Spielberg movies out at the same time? Damn! He seems really busy!

            I already reviewed "The Adventures of Tintin" earlier, and had kind of wanted to go see this one, since it seemed intriguing. But I had not seen it yet, and it's always better to review a movie once you have actually seen it, n'est ce pas?

            It starts off in rural Ireland, with more or less a predictable beginning. A peasant family gets in over it's head in obtaining an expensive horse to tame the land for farming, while time is running out before they lose everything.

            The boy, in the meantime, has a special bond with the horse, but once war comes, the horse is taken to serve jolly old England. There is a promise made by the boy to the horse that they will be together again.

            The horse goes off to fight in the front in France, and of course faces all sorts of horrors. It endures, of course, otherwise there would be no movie, right?

            In the meantime, the boy joins the army and goes off to fight himself, although this is years later.

            The thing that was refreshing with this movie was the complete absence of bad guys. There was a war, but nobody on either side is simply identified as clearly bad (well, maybe a couple of the German military leaders, but that's it). Somehow, the horse falls under the guidance of good people, despite the odds, and without regard to their nationality. To actually see both sides in the war as human and, ultimately, decent, is a bit of a different take than far too many war movies tend to take, when they glorify one side and demonize the other.

            The backdrop of this movie is, of course, World War I, and Spielberg, I think, does a pretty good job of illustrating the futility of that war, the arrogance and blindness of inept military leadership, and the blood and destructiveness that devastates not only the land, but the people fighting the war. The infamous "No Man's Land" and the squalor of the trenches ranked among the best depictions of these that I have ever seen, and perhaps did some justice to the actual conditions. You truly feel like the war is unfolding in front of you on a screen, in ways that some of the other movies about the era simply could not quite capture. For that alone, this is a movie worth seeing.

            Ultimately, it is a feel good movie. Despite some of the standard depictions of the poor but noble peasants doing their best to work the land and make it productive while eking out a living, versus the arrogant rich landlord who sees nothing but the bottom line (his money), or the seeming feel good friendships between horse and people, and horse and horse, it is a good movie with some interesting and believable versions of history, and well worth seeing, overall.

            Steven Spielberg seems to know how to make good war movies, doesn't he?