The horse and the war

War Horse

directed by Steven Spielberg

Okay first off let me state that yes this is technically a book blog, BUT I conveniently wrote "and other things" in the title. So there.

I watched War Horse today, and I have many conflicting opinions about it. My first reaction would be to say "This film is awful, a bunch of horrible things happen to horses and Benedict Cumberbatch." But that would be shallow and ridiculous, so I'm not going to say that.

First opinion. I am a rider. I ride horses. I know how they act. You cannot train a yearling to pull a plow in under a month. That does not work. No one else would notice things like that, but I kept cringing when the training of a young fiery thoroughbred was achieved in less than a month by a teenager. It was a horse movie. The horse had a best friend and a human best friend. I don't know how I feel about that. 'Jealous' is most likely because none of the horses I know would run through World War I to come back to me.

Second opinion. Shots and transitions. I like Spielberg, I like the way his films look and the overall feeling in them. However, some transitions and the way some shots were filmed stood out to me as a little strange. That may just be me, though.

Third opinion. It's sad. It's very, very sad. I was not aware of how sad it would be. I will not give you any spoilers, but I cried. It was sad in a "I'm going to close my eyes and plug my ears and think of happy things now" way. Denial is my way of coping with sad movies.

Fourth opinion. Well it's not really an opinion, but whatever. Benedict Cumberbatch had a mustache. What.

Fifth opinion.  Again, not an opinion. I think the title makes it pretty clear, but this is first and foremost a movie about a war. It is heart wrenching to watch at times. Make of that what you will, but be warned.

Conclusion. I liked it. Didn't love it, will probably not watch it again because I'm going to bawl, but I would recommend it to you all. Although if you love horses like I do, a few scenes might be pretty tough to watch. I closed my eyes a few times.

I realize that I should probably have given you a summary of the movie. In short, boy meets horse, horse and boy become best friends, WWI happens, horse gets taken away by the army, bad things happen to horse, boy becomes soldier, boy finds horse, the end. This is a very crude summary, you can google it, or better yet, watch the movie!

This sounds really sassy and negative. I did enjoy the movie! You should watch it!

Good end of Friday and/or happy beginning of Saturday!