Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Written by Dalton Trumbo and based on Les cavalier’s 1967 novel by Joseph Kessel
Cinematography: James Wong Howe and Claude Renoir
With: Omar Sharif as Uraz, Jack Palance as Tursen & Leigh Taylor-Young as Zareh, the untouchable whore (a very good looking untouchable whore)
The Horsemen arrived on theater screens in 1971 with an impressive pedigree. A screenplay from a celebrated French novel adapted by an Oscar winning writer, photographed by two of the finest cinematographers and directed by the filmmaker who gave us Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate. At the very least the viewer could expect an interesting movie . I saw it in 1971 and my expectation was realized. Some of it’s images have vividly remained with me in the last fifty-four years. Other images are too unpleasant to recall.
When we meet Omar Sharif as Uraz, the son of Tursen (Jack Palance), he is watching two camels fight to the death in staged combat. Afghan men, as there are almost no women in this story, wager on the outcome. Later sporting events include two small birds with sharpened beaks, and rams that battle to the death. Sports based on animal cruelty. However, this brand of men extend that cruelty to one another.
The king of Afghanistan commands all clans send teams to the capital of Kabul to participate in a tournament of the medieval sport of buzkashi. Horse mounted men fight and capture and carry, if possible, a headless calf’s carcass to a goal at the end of a large field, all the while being whipped by other riders attempting to take it from him.
It is a brutal contest in which men and horses are killed. In addition to their great horsemanship, these men are really tough bastards as well. Tursen orders his son Uraz to win the contest and offers his magnificent white stallion as prize. These Central Asian horses are shorter in the leg than their western cousins, and bred for stamina and endurance. They keep going long after a American Quarter Horse would give out (and yes, there is a metaphor in there).
Horses are the only thing these men seem to truly value. Uraz suffers a compound leg fracture during the lengthy and savagely ruthless buzkashi match, but manages to win the white stallion, nonetheless. Doctors have incased the damaged leg in a hip to ankle cast and Uraz sees as a “damnable box” which he removes, preferring to rely on the tried and true Afghan method of prayers and spells. (Can you say amputation? Well, neither could Uraz; howver, he was about to learn a new word.)
Uraz elects to take the short road home, because it is more difficult and he is a ”damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” kind of guy. So… Mounted on his white stallion and with lone his servant in tow, he starts the trek below snow covered peaks and other assorted unpleasant obstacles, managing to acquire a untouchable whore along the way. (a very good looking untouchable whore.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, his father Tursen is attempting to recapture his younger glory days as the reining buzkashi champ. (“You can’t be a badass forever…”) In those good old daze he was as unpleasant as his son.
Along the trek, the servant hooks-up with the whore and the two cook-up (‘formulate’ in 21st Centuryese) a plan to relieve Uraz of his horse, his money and his pain and suffering, all through the medium of death. WRONG! Uraz is on to that play and beats them at their own game.
He loses the gamy leg, as you knew he would, through the venue of a friendly goatherd with an axe. As this is a movie, he retains his skill as a horseman, putting on a big show for his dad and a bunch of rich and powerful swells. After reaching an understanding with his father (I guess that was what the scene was about) Uraz rides off into the sunset to spend his life traveling from nowhere to nowhere on a meaningless avenue of suffering.
As with many movies I see, I liked his film until I started thinking about it. Other than the very good looking untouchable whore, there is not a single character to invoke your sympathy. Any superpower considering invading Afghanistan would do well to consider the kind of men in The Horsemen and the price they demand for invoking their anger.
Leave a Reply