YEAR OF THE HORSE
A Film Review by James Berardinelli
RATING: NO STARS OUT OF ****
United States, 1997 U.S. Release Date: beginning 10/24/97 (limited) Running Length: 1:47 MPAA Classification: R (Profanity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Featuring: Neil Young, Ralph Molina, Frank (Poncho) Sampedro,
Billy Talbot
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Producer: L.A. Johnson
Cinematography: L.A. Johnson, Jim Jarmusch
Music: Neil Young & Crazy Horse
U.S. Distributor: October Films
Here's a pop quiz: Can you name three things to do to make the time pass more quickly while you're trapped in a theater showing YEAR OF THE HORSE?
1. Count to 10,000. 2. Take a nice, long nap. 3. Get up and walk out.
Of course, the best course of action would be not to get caught in this position in the first place. Unless you're a Neil Young die-hard, you're likely to find YEAR OF THE HORSE unbearable. At the screening I attended, there were more walkouts than I have ever before witnessed at any movie (including such controversial titles as IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, CLEAN SHAVEN, and KISSED), and for good reason: this is quite possibly the worst documentary I have ever had the displeasure of watching on the big screen.
Director Jim Jarmusch, the highly-regarded, maverick independent film maker (who is responsible for a number of intriguing films, including MYSTERY TRAIN and DEAD MAN) has intended YEAR OF THE HORSE as a loving tribute to one of his favorite bands, Neil Young & Crazy Horse. It's supposed to be a high-energy concert film that captures the intensity and camaraderie of the band members on and off-stage. What it turns out to be, however, is an overlong home movie with bad video and barely-adequate sound. YEAR OF THE HORSE falls into a rut very early, using a simple pattern that is regurgitated over and over again throughout the interminable 107-minute length: interviews from 1996, clips from 1976 and 1986, the band performing a song in front of a live audience, then back to the beginning. This recipe is repeated eight times.
The interviews, which comprise roughly one-quarter of the film's running time, are among the most trite and unenlightening that I've ever heard. Jarmusch asks soft, dull questions and receives banal answers. About the only thing I learned during these segments is that Neil Young's jacket says just "Crazy Horse" on it (rather than "Neil Young & Crazy Horse"). The behind-the-scenes footage that Jarmusch cannibalizes from the 1976 and 1986 tours is no more interesting. The supposed reason to see YEAR OF THE HORSE, however, isn't to listen to Young, Molina, Sampedro, and Talbot babble, but to watch them perform. Sadly, the concert footage isn't any more invigorating than the interview material. While extended jams can be enjoyable in person, where the audience forges a rapport with the band, they make for terrible cinematic material, and, coupled with Jarmusch's shaky, muddy photography (accomplished primarily with a hand-held Super 8 camera), they become lifeless, tedious exercises in chord repetition. Three- minute songs are dragged out into 10-minute torture sessions.
Unless you worship at the altar of Neil Young, I urge you to avoid this film. Every year, I typically experience one or two movies that I find physically painful to sit through. YEAR OF THE HORSE is such a film. What's especially shocking is that it comes from a talented director like Jarmusch, who is known for intelligent, thought-provoking pictures. Evidently, his feature film making ability doesn't translate into the documentary realm. YEAR OF THE HORSE is one of 1997's ugliest dogs.
Copyright 1997 James Berardinelli
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@mail.cybernex.net
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