The Horsemen

source: The Horsemen

Uraz (Omar Sharif) is the son of Tursen (Jack Palance), a stable master and retired buzkashi player, a sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. He has lost his honor when he breaks his leg in a game that his father has bet all of the family's money on, which means he has to learn how to ride and play again, despite most of his leg. Based on Joseph Kessel's Les cavaliers, this was scripted by Dalton Trumbo and directed by John Frankenheimer, who loved the movie even if it wasn't a financial success. There's a lot of animal violence in this, so be warned. I mean, it's a game played with a dead animal, after all. The same game is played in Rambo III, in case you wondered. Like that movie, the Afghanistan of this film is long gone. It's a big Hollywood film about a sport and a place that I can imagine very few people were interested in, which makes me interested in it.

A rare treat for fans of Omar Sharif (dies at 83, Requiescat in pace), fans of Afghanistan, and fans of equines. There's a hilarious scene with a thin sheep at a sheep fighting contest (one of many "sports" Afghans like to watch and bet on). A nomad (David Porath from The Odessa File (1974)) brings along a thin, deformed sheep to fight a big ram. Great acting as always from Omar Sharif. Leigh Taylor-Young is hot as a gypsy witch. Jack Palance adds a fatherly touch as well. Also recommended: Bite the Bullet (1975) The Man From Snowy River (1982) Eagle's Wing (1979) The Black Stallion (1979)

The Horsemen could have been better, and I was expecting to be bowled over considering the talent there is. It's still however a very decent and interesting film, with its best assets being excellent. When it comes to how The Horsemen looks, it's in this area where the film excels the most. The magnificent Afghanistan scenery, with its breath-taking sunsets and serene mountain views for examples, are done justice by the colourfully sweeping but also gritty photography, with its frequent use of beautiful aerial shots. The lushly romantic and (at other points) also appropriately brassy music score compliments the mood perfectly and the buzkashi scenes are relentlessly brutal(a warning this is not for the faint-hearted) as well as very compelling. John Frankenheimer's direction, while not the best he has ever done is restrained while not undermining any tension when it's needed. The characters are interesting and the interplay between them often is quite real, these are not 'likeable' characters by all means(never were they meant to be) but the development and interplay was well done it was easy to care for them. The acting is well above average on the most, with a more restrained than usual but very commanding, eerie and actually also very moving performance of Jack Palance faring best. His make-up is believable too. Leigh Taylor-Young plays her role very sympathetically. For all these good qualities however, The Horsemen has a few failings. One problem being the script, which has some naturally contemplative and poetic moments but also too many moments of silliness and awkwardness. A good atmosphere is maintained throughout and much of the film is very passionate and emotionally affecting, but the story for my tastes did drag sometimes and felt a little choppy structurally. Omar Sharif(from personal opinion) has also given better performances, it's certainly better than his stiff performance is the badly miscalculated Che Guevara biopic Che(which coincidentally also had Palance in one of his worst performances), but the performance here is a bit one-note and of one expression, Sharif spends most of the time looking very grim and not much of anything else. All in all, a decent film with some truly excellent things, but also could have been great if other important components were done stronger. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

Uraz, son of Tursen, the main character of the book and the movie (or is it the noble horse, Jahil?) refuses the aid of a Western style hospital in recovering from a serious leg injury sustained during the national sport of Buzkashi, circa 1960, in Royal (and feudal) Afghanistan. The book, one of the modern classics of world literature, now sells for a mere pittance on the Internet. Perhaps someday it will regain the stature and appreciation it richly deserves. Uraz, in an unforgettable adventure across the Hindu Kush (literally, eater of Hindus, for its bitter cold and unforgiving terrain) returns, fighting disgrace for having lost the competition, and fighting the disloyalty of a servant he has tempted with his money and his horse, in order to bind the servant, or syce, to the impossible task of assisting him in his return to his fathers home and training ground of great horsemen. He must also fight the treachery of a nomad woman whom he allows to accompany them, in order to further bind his male servant to the tasks ahead, and to distract him from his desire to possess the horse. The adventures met on the road back, the landscapes, scenery and populace, and the individual characters change the lives of the sojourners forever, as well as the events preceding the journey. The story of a young man facing disgrace, as well as danger from a severely septic wound, and his triumph over the adversity, as well as the price he and others pay for their youthful courage and yes, even arrogance (not the arrogance of nobility, only the arrogance of youth) is a power tale of male transformation from innocence to experience, from immaturity to the maturity of meeting adversity. The bitterness revealed in the book and only hinted at in the movie is realistic, not romanticized. The sweetness of life, of the land, and of human relationships is only underscored by the contrast via chiaroscuro with the treachery, bitterness, jealousy, greed and foolhardiness limned in the course of the novels exposition and development. The most memorable of characters, a gypsy woman who travels with an orangutan, is sadly omitted from the movie. Other memorable characters, who turn up unexpectedly in the book (notably, Guardi Gaj, listed as Guardy Gay in the movie cast, when perhaps the true pronunciation is more Gwardi Guy (without the Americanized vowels indicated here- the R should be lightly rolled from the tip of the tongue, and all vowels should be spoken more towards the rear of the mouth, in opposition to the lazy Americanized lack of pronunciation, but perhaps a bit more like the stiff-upper lipped speech of the British) change Uraz's life for the better, and forever, and he, in exchange, gives of himself to them. Read the book. The movie cannot be lightly brushed off as a pale comparison to the book, but can only be viewed as a flawed attempt to re-create something of the masterpiece that gave it life. See it on its own merits, as you should have done for The Lord of The Rings (Peter Jackson version). See it for the landscape and the travelogue, and the exotic foreign setting. See it for its relevance to what came before the Russian and American invasions and their disastrous consequences for an ancient culture. See it for what was lost forever in the destruction of the Bamian statues. (They figure in the book, but I don't recall if they are shown in the movie---I doubt it). See it for the Band-i-Amir, the Five Lakes. Read the book for an adventure of the imagination, in which you will see the landscape from the point of view of the authors mind. The author, by the way, was one of the early French aviators of World War One, like Antoine de Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince, Wind Sand and Stars). His work is only known here in the U.S. minimally, from the French film Belle de Jour (also a novel), and the novel The Lion. Read, view, experience for yourself, don't depend on others opinions.

With a writer like Trumbo (who also did one of the best anti war movies of all time :"Johnny got his gun" )and a director like Frankenheimer ("the Manchurian candidate " "seconds" "birdman from Alcatraz" ,how could you be wrong?Add Omar Shariff and Jack Palance.Plus the marvelous wild landscapes .And the magic of these Asian nights.And however it does not quite make it.The slow-moving story is sometimes boring ,in spite of the talent of the actors (and the horses who play a prominent part ,check the title).The magnificence of the settings makes up for it but make sure you see it on a wide screen in a movie theater.Much of its appeal is inevitably lost on a tiny TV screen.

This is an example of taking a book and adapting it to the large screen and realising with hindsight that it works better as a book . I'm not familiar with Joseph Kessel's original novel but the comments on this page state that the film is very faithful to the book and that might be the problem . It's a story that concentrates on obsession at winning at all costs and Uraz the protagonist is a universal metaphor for all mankind that when you want to win something it can cost you very dearly You can perhaps see why the producers thought this would make a great film with its exotic locations and the fact it was st in Afghanistan before the land reforms the mid 1970s that led to civil war and the subsequent Soviet intervention is what made me seek out the film if only to understand Afghan culture better and the film does contain an intelligent opening when the audience are led to believe they're watching a scene from the 17th Century only to the Afghan rug pulled from under their feet as a jet plane screams over head . Likewise there's some spectacular scenes involving the sport of buzkashi where horsemen literally fight over the carcass of a dead goat and there's some impressive cinematography featuring the Afghan landscape but the inherent problem with the film is the character driven narrative which doesn't kindly lend itself to the medium of cinema

Not having seen this film since its initial release, I have vague moments of recollection (I was eleven at the time) but, after all these years, I still remember this film, a few scenes-even the theater where I saw it-so that has to count for something. We, my parents, and myself went to many, many movies so it was not unusual for me to come along, even at decidedly adult fair such as this. My mother had a crush on Omar-notwithstanding that they share the same passion for bridge. Frankenheimer had a good reputation for producing and directing interesting, offbeat films that hit as often as they miss-The Manchurian Candidate, Grand Prix, and Black Sunday come to mind. So, we gave this film a shot. While I do not remember the plotline to any great extent, what I do remember quite vividly was that this film took place in Afghanistan, and features quite prominently the national sport of Buzkashi-a sport whereby riders on horses attempt to deposit the carcass of a lamb in a circle. Also, this has what is quite honestly the best performance in a film by Omar Sharif you will ever find. He plays a great rider who is injured early in the film. He broads about a lot but finally finds redemption by returning to the sport that nearly killed him for that one last ride. I do not remember if he makes it through alive. Buzkashi is an old, old brutal sport/ritual full of tradition and ceremony. The film took great pains to present this dying spectacle as realistically as possible and is the great set piece to the film. A true Man's man sport, it is not for the fainthearted. For me, at eleven, I was not used to cinematic `realism' even though by then I had seen hundreds of films. Perhaps it is why I remember it so for it made quite an impression. The film was transferred to video but is long out of print and only available through collectors. It has not made it to DVD, unfortunately. I have not seen it since it initial release. Still, in a long career for Frankenheimer, this is a film that should not be forgotten and is probably one of his best.

Omar Sharif and Jack Palance may be the only names in this cast that most will recognize but the story based on an Afghan tale, set in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion, is a classic tale which lays out a great deal of Afghan culture during the period before the great disruption by the West. Afghanistan returned to the public eye after the post-911 invasion to depose the Taliban but the state of knowledge about these marvelous independent people who fought the British Empire to a standstill, still remains obscure. The game of buzgashi, a kind of polo for Weidman, was the core for many of the tribesmen. Its importance as an institution marking the status of tribes and individuals has no real counterpart in Western culture, and this is a tale of intrigue and self-learning, framed in a cultural setting we still have yet to understand.

This is a human condition action adventure that takes place in modern time( meaning 1971) Afghanistan. The film starts by showing how far back in time they are. Everybody is riding around on horses while planes are driving above them. In this country a proud (the best word would be prince but it doesn't exactly fit) Uraz (played by Omar Sharif, mostly known as that guy who had the lead in Doctor Zhivago) sets out to this weird horse tournament on the request of his father, a elderly clan leader and master of the sport played by the great Jack Palance. It's made obvious from the start that though this man might be proud and even quite noble (he always bets on the weakest), he is in fact cruel to servants and have a rather nihilistic view on life. When he manages to fall off his horse and break his leg he feels a great dishonor and sets out to find the hardest and deadliest road home. On the way everything that is good in humans are questioned! The film has a very different view of the world than most others, at least this early in cinema. Many of the characters are so shady it will almost make you sick. I must say that I did not like these people as humans, though I did like their characters, inhuman behavior and cruelty is something I take a huge interest in. For those of you who enjoy to travel to different worlds and can enjoy and love films even if they perhaps have a different stand than your world view, this is the film for you. I was quite taken by it I must say. My second favorite Frankenheimer picture to date, meaning that I thought it was better than great films such as The Manchurian Candidate, The Train and Seven Days in May. The colors are great and the mood and pacing is very intense. Most of the frames are quite beautiful. The acting is very good! And it's philosophy as a whole is rather good too but I will not give away anything about how this film turns out but I will say that I thought it was fabulous. A genius film! A masterpiece! You should definitely check it out. A true gem!