Sydney Pollack
Non Si Uccidono Così Anche I Cavalli?

THE REVIEW

In 1970, Sydney Pollack adapted the short novel "They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?" by Horace McCoy into the film "They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?"; this movie is still one of the key works of the '70s, and in its remarkable substance, it is an incredibly concrete portrayal of human desperation pushed to the extreme, a sadistic and heavy narrative, but above all claustrophobic and unsettling.

In 1932, during the Great Depression in Los Angeles, a dance marathon takes place at a dance hall by the ocean with a $1500 prize. The participants are the most humble and affected by poverty; the circus is managed by a cruel and brazen impresario (Gig Young) who will make a fortune over weeks by showcasing his assortment of impoverished people to the wealthy of California.

The film is a fresco depicting a society merciless towards the weakest, who are forced to perform like animals in a primitive reality show to live and eat, where their dignity is completely erased, serving only as freaks for the showcase and to feed the sadistic tastes of the audience. A cold foreshadowing of contemporary reality, with the necessary differences, this film talks about real distress and dramatic living conditions; man is driven to do anything to try to escape poverty, and skillful, unscrupulous exploiters are always lurking to capitalize on it. Ultimately, it's a struggle to live, where the shrewdest and strongest crush and use the miserable for their purposes, but what emerges in the end is only a deep sense of sadness and resignation that saves no one. The title refers to the killing of horses that suffer foot fractures (incurable for an animal that lives almost entirely on its feet), and to understand it, one must follow the desperate race of the protagonist, played by a brilliant Jane Fonda, who needs the prize to escape her miserable fate and who in the end finds herself hopeless, destroyed by the exhausting race, and after much pain will ask her partner to perform one last desperate act.

The film is not suitable for everyone; it all takes place in a closed environment and for two hours there is no way out, a marathon of pain, tears, and madness that creates a deep sense of discomfort in the viewer who finds it difficult to endure the vision of such ostentatious physical and psychological suffering. Excellent direction by Pollack, notable management of the ensemble of other sad characters’ stories, ultimately making it a metaphor for the fate of man, always condemned to suffer to eventually live in this world.