The apocalyptic forebodings that have run through a number of Béla Tarr’s films are brought to completion in The Turin Horse. Here, the world comes to an end.

A father and daughter live in an isolated cottage. The horse is clearly their primary means of survival, and disaster looms the moment illness strikes the animal. The horse of the title is, incidentally, the same one that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is said to have embraced in 1889, overcome with compassion after witnessing it being whipped, an event after which the great thinker lost his sanity.

The film follows the daily routines of the father and daughter in meticulously lit compositions, portraying human existence reduced to its bare essentials. The drama is driven by a relentless storm that shakes the small cottage and its surroundings. The film received the Best Director award at the Berlin International Film Festival and became Béla Tarr’s final feature film.