‘Of Horses and Men’ Explores the Animal Within: An Interview with Icelandic Director Benedikt Erlingsson

Director Benedikt Erlingsson. Photo Courtesy of Silversalt PR.

GALO: I noticed many close-up shots of the horses’ eyes and of their fur. Why was the horses’ color important to you?

BE: There are lots of tableaus in this film. The color is essential to the spirit of the film — the white mare, the black horse, the red wild horse with the crazy eye that wants to escape. The swimmer is earth-colored. And it’s also what you want to see and what’s good for the picture. The color is an essence.

GALO: When you were filming, were all the horses obedient? Did any of them cause trouble or cause any accidents?

BE: The humans were the troublemakers in making the film. The actors were almost more difficult than the horses. I was congratulating the horses after each take. The director of photography, Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson, was criticizing me, saying I also have to say something positive to the actors. I was only positive with the horses.

In a way, the things we were most afraid of turned out to be the easiest; for example, the mating scene, when the stallion mounts the mare with the man on the saddle. That was one take. That was about the cycle of the mare. She was sending hormones that made the stallion go wild and go on her. You cannot rape a mare like that. She had to actually be in her cycle. It was all about the timing, but when we got it, it was just one take. The key was preparation, to have good trainers, and to understand the horses’ psychology.

The director of photography and I are horsemen, so we would work with them. For example, how do you get a horse to react in front of a camera, to get it to look left or right? That’s only possible to do if you know that horses are more interested in other horses than in human beings. So you can have a crew in front of horses, with lots of instruments, but behind the crew is another horse who is a friend of the horse being filmed. If you move that other horse, then you can control the head movement of the horse in front of the camera.

We humans are the same. We are more interested in each other than in horses. We are rating each other. We are status animals, like the horse. Horses are very much status animals. We are social animals, status animals and loving animals. We need love, like horses.

GALO: As a director, you’re not just directing a cast and crew; you’re also directing these animals so they can do what you need them to do.

BE: You have to manipulate them. You cannot direct them in that sense. They are a natural force. Sometimes that’s a problem in filmmaking. People think everything is done on the condition of the camera. If the camera turns in this direction, everything has to be shot in that direction. Well, when you’re doing a low budget film like this (and we shot this in 25 days), and you have an animal, a natural force like a horse, you have to do things on their condition. You have to understand the psychology behind the horse. But, in a sense, I’m also doing that with the actors. You have to move them, manipulate them, and give them carrots and bread, just like [you would do with] horses.

GALO: This has been a very successful debut. Is directing something you want to continue to do in the future?

BE: I only want to do this. I’m just going to write my own stuff and make films the rest of my life.

GALO: One of the striking images in the film is of a man cutting open a horse to use its corpse for warmth. It seems like we depend on the horses for survival, and in the end we will put our own needs over that of the animal. Can you explore the meaning of this image?

BE: In a way, you can see the metaphor here. Even a bad horse can save a man. And so, a man is reborn from the horse. The horse has saved his life. This is a known story. In Iceland, people have saved themselves in this way. In Europe, during the Napoleonic Wars, the trained soldiers killed their horses in Russia and crawled into them — and the same thing in Star Wars. For me, it’s a metaphor: When the man is taken out of the horse, he is reborn. The string from the mother is there also. It’s a tableau in a way. It’s like little Jesus born from the womb of Mother Mary. And then the three rescuers come running into the frame, like the Three Wise Men. So you can say this is a Christmas altar.

GALO: On a different topic, you have spent the better part of the last year traveling the world and promoting this film. You are in New York now. Has this given you any perspective on the global film industry? How does the film industry in Iceland compare to the rest of the world?

BE: It’s a beautiful model we have here in Iceland. We have the Icelandic Film Fund, “the big mama” of filmmaking here. We do five to seven feature films every year and lots of documentaries and short films every year. It’s the Scandinavian model. You apply and if they like your stuff and you, they will sponsor up to 60 percent of your budget, if you can fund the rest. If you get a yes from them, you have to start looking for a co-producer or other funds. When you show them you have it, they will green-light the film and give you the money.

This is done for a cultural and national reason. We are a group of people, a tribe on an island in the ocean. We use the state to help each other make stories on film. It’s all about educating ourselves, where we are coming from and where we are, so the living generation can decide where we’re going. We have to be informed. It’s the information revolution working for the Icelandic Film Fund system.

GALO: Do you have any interest in moving to the United States, or perhaps another place where there’s more money?

BE: No. In a way, I’m not interested in the Hollywood game. I don’t need them. I just want to make films on my own premise and have absolute power. That’s very natural for European filmmaking and it’s not a question. And, I believe, you can be global by being local. There is power in the “local-global.”

GALO: Speaking of local as the new global, is there anything you’d like international audiences to learn about Iceland from this film?

BE: I don’t want them to learn about Iceland, I just want them to learn something about human beings and themselves. The film is an example of a small society. It’s about the coexistence between these two animals and the nature in ourselves. We have a lot of horses in us. There are also horses in New Yorkers or in Japan. I’m aiming bigger than selling the country. Our landscape is overused in that sense. It’s only a byproduct if people see this film and want to come.

Video courtesy of Hrossabrestur.

All images used in this article are courtesy of Silversalt PR.