Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Martin Bradley The one thing that Iceland has no shortage of, apart from ice that is, is scenery and director Benedikt Erlingsson makes great use of it in this strange tale that supposedly describes man's relationship with the horse but which lapses into the surreal often enough for us to wonder if Erlingsson has something else in mind. Indeed, after the scenery, it is the horses who are the real stars here, though if you are a horse lover, the few scenes where they are killed and mutilated by the good folk of Iceland, should give you pause, (though the humans don't come out of it too well, either). It's more like something you might get from the likes of Roy Andersson while on holiday and it's quirky enough to be of more than passing interest. It's also quite short.

JvH48 Saw this film at the Noordelijk film festival 2014 in Leeuwarden (NL). Beautiful landscapes with men/women looking after horses and riding on them, while at the same time very occupied with the other women/men in the village. The movie is carried by several intertwined story lines to keep the flow going, including all sorts of humorous and dramatic events.The village population sees and knows everything that's going on with their neighbors, even watching more distant neighbors and their interactions by means of binoculars when line of sight allows. Much of this was exactly as I remember from my youth, having grown up on a farm in a very small village (750 people, 100 houses). There was one remarkable difference, however, namely that the horses in this film were treated very different in comparison with the cows I am more familiar with. I felt these horses to be more closer to humans than cows ever were in my remembrance.Not all village life is a happy life, however, in spite of the romantic feelings we derive from adverts with green meadows filled with happy cows. It involves tedious manual labor in difficult circumstances, in good and bad weather, and long travel distances that cross unfriendly rocks and rivers. We had to witness two funerals in the process, something wherein the whole village comes together and sympathizes in the family's grief. Major events like rounding-up horses to be brought to the market when ready to be sold, also form opportunities where the whole village works together in taking the herd over the rocks and rivers and the vast fields in between, typically a task that can be completed only when everyone joins in and cooperates.On a more frivolous note, we see hormones at work within horses as well as people. It is something that can unite as well as break up people or even families. Phenomena like this were more hidden in the village where I grew up (it was in the sixties, and maybe I was just ignorant and as youngster did not see the obvious at the time). Anyway, hormones in this village are prominently present and active, with a definitive influence on everyone's actions. We witness several actions frowned on by any church I know of. The whole village witnesses it, or at least hears about it, and certainly has an opinion in the matter.As an example I can mention a hilarious scene where a price winning mare is being sired (is that the correct verb?) by a young stallion, while the owner of the mare is still sitting on its back.... This event involved lots of additional shame, as it happened while the proud owner was actually showcasing his newly bought mare. Everyone in the village saw it happening from close-by or via their binoculars. Yet I did not fully comprehend the aftermath of this intimate gathering of the two horses, who actually did nothing wrong while following the call of nature. I assume that the shame and being the talk of the town played an important role in the decision.All in all, the landscapes, the inside view in the micro cosmos of an Icelandic village, with the horses as important protagonists together with their owners, it all mixes very well while showing dramatic as well as hilarious events. A lot of interesting things happen on screen in only 81 minutes, which is an achievement in itself. You don't get the chance to loose your attention while so many things are happening.

DoctorHver Awful movie with no plot, This movie simply doesn't deserve any of the compliments or awards it has been getting. This movie lacks the most important fact, a plot and story. Nothing happens during the entry run-time, that are 81 min I will never get back. The lowest point in this film was the semi-beastiality porn sequence. I mean whats entertaining or fun about that? If you enjoy those kind of things you might as well Google for beastiality porn on the internet instead. But keep in mind that I condemn such a behavior so you do so at your own risk. Conclusion, If this film is supposed to be the saving grace of Icelandic film industry you might as well kill it. There is nothing else you can say about this film.

maurice yacowar The Icelandic film Of Horses and Men should properly be called Stories of Horses and People, director Benedikt Erlingsson told the Palm Springs Film Festival audience. The film is structured like an episodic Icelandic saga.In the last shot a wide expanse of life radiates out of the central hub, a pen of newly rounded up mustangs. That's a coda to the stories that relate human to equine life. Indeed each episode begins with an image of a human or his work reflected in a horse's eye. The opening titles use a white horse's close-up hide as the backdrop. An ear perks to the music. Later the music will fade in and out of the hoof beats.In the first episode a man is humiliated when the snappy white mare he is riding is mounted by a black stallion — the man still aboard. Feeling emasculated, the man shoots his mare and lovingly buries her. Because the stallion's owner desires that man she castrates the stallion. In the last episode she will finally get her stud, even if she has to warn him to hold on to his horses. In fact, to her brown mare who's jumpy. After the roundup the man finds another white mare, so his romantic adventure shows only gain.In some episodes the horses are clearly smarter than the men. One man rides a horse into the sea to buy vodka from a Russian boat — then drinks himself to death on the pure alcohol he was given. In a spat over a fence one man is killed and another loses an eye.On the other hand, a Swedish girl proves her mettle by single-handedly rounding up six runaways and the blind drunk. The young Mexican who admires her joins a riding troop and survives a blizzard by killing and gutting his horse, then burrowing into its carcass. In these stories the human and the horse are in harmony. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.