TWO-LEGGED HORSE Movie Review. WHAT PRICE HUMANITY?

FILM REVIEW

HE’S ONLY AN IMPOVERISHED BOY, BORN IN A WRONG PLACE AT A WRONG TIME.

The setting is  in AFGHANISTAN , in a desolate region that’s both remote and poor.

Here, underprivileged children live in acute poverty, in a maze of abandoned sewer pipes that provide meagre shelter.

Here, MIRVAIS , one of the inhabitants of the pipes, is desperate to earn his keeps for his family, so he readily accepts a challenge in a humiliating contest for a job.

In order to qualify, the poor boy has to compete against other desperate children.

And any of the participants, who can carry on a rich lame boy who had lost his legs in war and takes him to school will become the winner–and the rich boy’s personal “horse”.

No, the story doesn’t just end here.

Instead, we are taken on a 100-minute journey to witness the demeaning  exploitations of humanity.

What right does a human have to treat another like a lowly animal?

How low can anyone go?

This is a scary, yet heart-wrenching tale of how a one-legged boy transforms an older boy into a beast of burden.

Sadistic pleasure?

We are shown, in graphic details, the crippled boy’s brutal treatment of his “human horse” and the latter’s total submission and his slow metamorphosis into the four-legged animal …..

Wouldn’t you be outraged?

Anybody in his proper frame of mind would be.

Didn’t we all hear that:

Humanity is the supreme of all religions of the world.

….. that the most important thing in life is much more than winning for ourselves.

The most important thing in this life is to help others to win.

A generous heart, a life of service and compassion to the mankind …..

are the things which renew humanity ….

and that’s the best religion , nothing else.

When you have money, you are in a position of control,

You bark orders

and you reign supreme,

You act like the lord of this world …

But when you don’t

You come abegging,

You are relegated as a powerless animal to this world.

In third world countries, there are many who are living lives of exploitation,

with humanity stripped beyond the bone of basic human rights.

Well, in a disturbing way, TWO-LEGGED HORSE the movie will surely

weave its way into our hearts and make us realize that we are indeed, taking life for granted,

that we are lucky ….

if only we all want to acknowledge this.

This award winning IRANIAN film, brilliantly directed by SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF takes a stab at human brutality at its worse and the director’s treatment of the physical pain is at most times, unbearable to watch.

Yet one must remember the  power of the story that seeks to reflect our life and times.

Glory be.