•
Rating: An ex-rodeo champion a little too devoted to the bottle, a stallion symbol of a great industry. Together they will embark on a race towards freedom.
"The Electric Horseman" is a film that has the merit of addressing a highly topical theme, which is the return to nature and its laws, with a poetic grace of sweet intensity. Pollack tells us the story of a man, Sonny Steele (Robert Redford), who is now out of his natural element. Sonny is a cowboy with no more herds and horses, forced into a luxurious retirement as a sponsor of a cereal brand. The limelight is not for him, he has lost his spirit, reduced to a puppet in the hands of money, women, and alcohol slowly ruining him. Rising Starr is a doped stallion exploited as a mere commercial image, his essence also taken away, he cannot run and cannot reproduce, his life has only a six-figure price tag. The extraordinary resemblance between Sonny and Rising Starr leads the cowboy to make a decision: he must save him. One evening in Las Vegas, Sonny politely says goodbye to everyone and escapes with the horse.
The film is characterized by alternating a first annoying and fake part (intentionally), full of lights and glitter to symbolize an empty life, with a second part instead with more open and reconciliatory tones. It's no coincidence that Sonny takes Rising Starr away from Las Vegas, the city of superfluity and nothingness par excellence. Redford once again demonstrates his remarkable ability to empathize with the role. With a mustache, a cowboy accent, a hat covering his eyes; Sonny is a complex, introverted, and hermetic type just like a horse; the journalist who manages to track him down in the middle of Nevada (Jane Fonda) will find herself sharing with him an experience of rebirth. Sonny is not just a horse thief as his former employers want to portray him, he is a man in search of his lost spirit. His soul is somewhere between the mountains of Utah, and while he may be trapped now in the frantic modern society to fully rediscover himself, for Rising Starr there is still a hope to be saved: to return from where he came, to run free and only be subject to the judgment of Mother Nature.
Pollack directs this great love story with elegance, beautiful cinematography, open spaces, silence, and the scent of freedom accompany Sonny towards his destination. A perfect cast (Jane Fonda is also great) for a beautifully simple film.
Loading comments slowly
