electric mist

Hildago

As with any review, there may be spoilers here, so if you don't want to read about them, skip this entry.

I have to partially agree with Mary Ann of Flick Filosopher on her assessment of Hidalgo: two words: Veeeee-go. I mean, really. The man could stare at a phone book, much less read it, and I could be entertained.

Unlike Mary Ann, the movie felt slow to me, but not in the purposeful force-you-into-the-movie way of an Antonioni, but simply too... over-simplified. And to me, Viggo really has the chops to have taken it to a deeper level, so I have to fault the story.

The story wants to be about a man's inner journey, and there's enough angst and denial-of-his heritage in Frank's life at the beginning of a movie that we feel the promise of something deeper to come. Frank enters the ultimate race of a lifetime -- 3000 miles of desert across Iraq -- and puts his life and that of his beloved horse, Hildago, on the line mostly because he can't stand his world and what he's become. He's been running from himself for his entire life, and this ultimate race is just one more way to run.

The thing is, Frank is already pretty certain about who he is in ways that come across in the story; the way he sits on a horse, the self-assured way he handles all of the taunts from the other racers and bystanders, the way he seems to already know how to run a 3000 mile race across a desert, even though he hasn't run one across a desert before and we don't really see him learning much from anyone around him. He just knows, and that sort of self-assurance doesn't lend itself cinematically to a man discovering himself. (If that makes sense.) So the inner journey that the outer race represents... isn't all that far for him to go. He faces obstacles, he overcomes. He faces more, and overcomes again.

Then, in the middle of this journey story, and to add twists (though someone will probably pipe up that this is real from the real life story)... is the kidnapping and rescue of the Shiek's daughter. It briefly gives Frank the opportunity to say some things out loud about his heritage that he hasn't vocalised yet... and even so, it felt superficial when it should have felt more moving. This is, after all, the most important epiphany of his travels, of his life, and it feels like it emanates off the surface and isn't wrenched from the gut. Even at the point of the climax, when he sees the images surrounding him, when he's at the last leg and giving up? I'm still not sure what it is he's getting from that moment or how it's ultimately playing into the journey of who Frank is and who he will become. The writer has the first racer interrupt him and point out that they are very near the end of the race... which he hadn't been able to see because of his dehydration and exhaustion... which just sucks the power out of those images. I get that he's asking for help and that the help comes... but it comes from serendipity, not from a specific message or guidance from the images, which were what he was calling upon. I wanted to see a moment when the images were beckoning him forward, when something was conveyed to him about who he was as a man, when calling on that heritage paid off for him in a more emotional way. And instead, the competitor stopped on his way to taunt him (thus wakening him up to the fact that he was very close to winning) and the horse that was almost dead a few seconds before stands up and looks miraculously better. And can run like hellfire is about to get it.... while he's dehydrated and couldn't even walk a few minutes before... with a deep gash in a front muscle... while carrying a rider. (I had a horse with a gash not nearly as bad as that -- she was a quarter horse and damned fast, and when she gashed her leg, she was in so much pain, she was practically in a stupor. It took her weeks to get back up to the point where she could walk without wincing and longer to carry a rider. And I weighed less than a 100 lbs.)

Even with all of that complaining, I still enjoyed the film, but it was mostly because like I said, Veeee-go, and then, there are horses. I love horses and I will watch almost any film where they are prominent. (One of my favorite films is a coming of age story, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER. I know, half of you just rolled your eyes, but I love that movie and if you don't like it, there is something wrong with you. Seriously. Wrong. So there.)

Posted by toni at March 13, 2004 10:30 PM