The Turin Horse (15)

Bela Tarr, 154mins. Starring: Janos Derzsi, Erika Bok

Brilliantly shot in black and white by Fred Kelemen, Bela Tarr's latest feature (possibly his final one if his own proclamations are to be trusted) is set in a rundown farmhouse in some post-apocalyptic wilderness.

The wind is always howling, elegiac music is heard on the soundtrack, but dialogue is spare to non-existent.

The characters are a father and daughter who seem to have strayed out of a Samuel Beckett play. They spend their days trying to get their recalcitrant horse to move and inching closer to despair.

The Hungarian auteur's gnomic, slow-moving storytelling style and grim absurdism demand patience but the formal mastery here is astounding.