The pain and pain of life can really only be experienced by themselves, and people can be their protagonists.
Out and Steal a Horse is a Norwegian feature film that won the Silver Bear Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Berlin Film Festival. The cold, quiet atmosphere of Northern Europe makes us immersed from the beginning: the cold weather, the snow drifting in the sky, the old man in front of the wooden house, looking up at the trees, as the camera shakes down, it is a panoramic view of the woods. He said: "I have longed to be alone in such a place all my life. "The old man's name is Trod, Norwegian, who has lived in Sweden for more than forty years, and three years ago, his wife died in a car accident, and in order to get rid of his injuries, he returned to Norway and retreated to the mountains and forests, living here alone. Cool-toned images add a layer of loneliness. Here Trod met his neighbor Lars, who soon realized that they were acquaintances, and that when he was young, he spent summer vacations on his father's farm, and that Lars was the protagonist of a tragic incident— shooting and killing his twin brother by mistake.
It is a more literary film, adapted from the award-winning novel of the same name. The film uses Trod's elderly voiceover, through constant flashbacks, in the flow of consciousness, recalling his past when he was fifteen years old. Old age and youth, winter and summer back and forth, although the narrative line is a bit incoherent, but the fixed long shots and fast cut alternately, the rhythm is slow and fast, so that the psychology and emotions of the characters are effectively displayed.
Unlike the cold winters, the Norwegian summer landscape is full of life: mist, waterfalls, water currents, leaves, birdsong... Tetrod went out with his companion Jon to steal horses—not really, but secretly riding horses in the woods. All the way across the river, the water is clear; in the grass, the ants are busy, the hares are running; the sky, the owl is flying; Trod's posture of jumping on the horse's back is not elegant, but the jerkiness reveals bravery and excitement, although he fell off the horse... The picturesque scenery of summer can't hide Jon's abnormalities, such as climbing old trees, breaking bird eggs, pinching chicks, and howling like crazy. Trod's hunch came true, the day before, Jon's parents entrusted Jon to take care of his two twin brothers, he went home from hunting with a shotgun, but unexpectedly, while the twin brothers were having fun, Lars did not know that the shotgun bullet was loaded, and killed his brother by mistake. The scene is handled with a strong feeling: Jon hears the gunshots and falls to his knees in the grass, while in the distance, Jon's father runs from right to left toward the house, and then, holding the body of his young son, comes out of the house...
Trod's short summer vacation life was by no means more than this one event that he would remember for the rest of his life, which made him know that the fragility of life, and most importantly, his relationship with his father, "a confident man in his early forties, this was my opinion of my father when I was fifteen, but he disappeared from my life forever.". This summer was the last time he spent time with his father, and he never saw each other again, but in the days to come, his father was always like a shadow, and he said to people: "My father is a very pragmatic person, I learn a lot from him, if I had a practical job, I would always think, if it were my father, he would do." 」 ”
My father had a family in a small Norwegian town, with wives and children, but he bought a remote farm at a low price, cutting down trees and logging. Trod and his father are not intimate, there seems to be some kind of estrangement, and the rare warm scene in the film is that he and his father bathe in the rain. Like all ignorant teenagers, he has a crush on Jon's mother, who happens to have an intimate relationship with his father (they had feelings for the Resistance during World War II), and is jealous and resentful until he learns the truth. Before leaving the farm, Trod and his father set up wood together, a natural transport method that allowed the cut-down trees to flow downstream to Sweden. When wood was blocked in the river, Trod bravely dredged the groundwater. The father hugged his son twice, admonished in his ear, and once at the bridge: "This summer is great, this is life, a lot of things can happen, you can think about it, but never mind it." Another time after Trod fell off his horse, "Are you injured?" Maybe the mind is hurt, accept it, stop thinking about it, it doesn't work. ”
In small Norwegian towns, Trod had waited for his father's return every day, and had been annoyed that his father would not return, but when his mother bought him a suit with the money his father transported wood, he looked brand new. This summer, there was also his father, who taught him a lot, and when he first arrived at the farm, he was afraid of pain, and his father used his hand to pull the nettle with thorns to show him: "Pain or no pain, you can decide for yourself." At the end of the film, the young Trod opened his arms, touched the nettle, and then cut into the lens of the elderly Trod staring at his hands, the father's words made Trod think about a lifetime, the pain and pain of life, really can only be experienced by themselves, people can be their own protagonists. (Liu Weixin)