Galloping into a Nightmare

"Equus"

I had first heard of the film Equus when I was a freshman in high school.  The class was History of Motion Pictures.  My teacher, Mr. Bennett, was in the middle of a lively discussion about the great director Sidney Lumet.  Somehow Equus was brought up in the conversation.  Bennett said the premise revolved around a teenager, Alan (Peter Firth,) who was in a mental institution of sorts because he committed a certain act of violence.  An act of violence so sickening that our teacher did not want to talk about it.  Now of course we as high school students only probed him further to tell us what that unspeakable act was.  After twisting his arm bit, Bennett revealed that Alan was seeking psychiatric help from Dr. Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) because he blinded six horses with a metal spike.  This shocked me.  How could a person commit such a brutal crime against an animal?  Bennett's brief description of the film only intrigued me more.  I knew I wanted to see this picture.  Well, it's been eleven years since that day in class and now I can say I've seen Equus.  I had no idea though what lied beneath its unsettling surface.

Equus delves deep into the human psyche.  I know that what Alan did was terrible.  But I want to know why he did it?  Dr. Dysart takes us into the mind of the seventeen year old mostly through flashbacks showing his strict upbringing from his devoutly religious mother (Joan Plowright) and sexually repressed father (Colin Blakely) to also his thorough fascination with horses.  And when I say the word fascination, I'm putting it mildly.  The relationship he has with horses is borderline zoophilic.  Stop.  Before you let your imagination become flooded with lewd acts of stories you’ve heard from the internet I want to say that the film never shows Alan actually engaging in any explicit acts of sexuality with the equestrian species.  He does however strip down naked and caress their bodies in a very sensual manner.  Alan has a great respect for the four legged creatures and worships them as if they were his lord and savior.  He believes that man and beast should be as one.  This is one of the most complex cases Dysart has ever seen and he soon becomes consumed it which in turn brings forth demons that he is battling within his own life.

Equus is based on a play by Peter Schaffer.  The screenplay was also adapted by the playwright as well.  From start to finish there is no denying that this film was based off of a play.  Everything from the staging of scenes, to the lighting schemes, and the specific use of camera movement gives us the feeling of watching a show straight from Broadway.  And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I'm familiar enough with work of Mr. Lumet to see that his direction is ever present thought the film's entirety.  Every scene is directed with such intensity because his actors are working their tails off.  Burton's and Firth's performances occur together at such a high level of theatricality, I felt emotionally drained after every couch session they had.

This is  the kind of film that gradually gets under your skin and works its way into the brain until it knows that you are emotionally invested enough to stay through everything that happened in Alan's life leading up to that one night of horror.  Schaffter's screenplay and Lumet's direction work hand in hand to take its audience down a dimly lit hallway.  As we venture deeper and deeper down the hallway and stare at pictures of Alan's past; a feeling of uncomfortableness starts to wash over us.  The faint hallway then begins to darken and Alan’s life pictures just get more and more disturbing.  Finally we are wondering around in total darkness.  Our hands reach out for anything familiar and then we feel it; the body of a horse.  Suddenly the lights rise with the hallway being completely illuminated and there we see Alan going to do the dreadful deed he must do.  Equus does a marvelous job of building to that moment and both Schaffer and Lumet know that they have us right where they want us, too terrified to flee for the exit doors.

Having now experienced Equus, this film will forever remain vivid in my memory.  Supremely acted, complexly written, and utterly perturbed in its subject matter, Schaffer and Lumet do masterful work by giving us a film that challenges us intellectually to the point where we can tolerate no more.  Equus is emotionally demanding of its audience in what we have to endure, but the payoff is quite good even with its upsetting content.  I do highly recommend this intricately involving character driven piece of cinema to anyone who is a fan of Lumet or wants to see some serious acting chops from Burton and Firth.  That being said, I recommend it with extreme caution and you must stay through all three acts of the play... I mean film.  Equus is certainly something to talk about afterwards.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need some levity in my life after writing this review.  Perhaps I'll watch an episode of The Simpsons, one that is of the utmost hilarity.