Dead Horses Review

Another of my favourite short films at the festival, which was also an animated film, was “Dead
Horses” (2016; Director and writer: Marc Riba and Anna Solanas), which I also watched on
Wednesday afternoon at the “Animation 1: Packing a Punch” event. “Dead Horses” told the story of
a mother and child who are forced to evacuate their home. The boy is perplexed by the amount of
dead horses that are lying around, and eventually loses his mother after she is killed by a bomb
explosion.



The reason why I enjoyed “Dead Horses” because it told the story of a child whose country has been
destroyed by a war. When I watched it I immediately thought it was inspired by the Syrian refugee
crisis. As with “Sog” the writers presumably expected the viewers to go away feeling empathy for
the Syrian refugees if they did not already. It is an especially thought provoking film in the current
age which is an era full of politicians and leaders who seem to be oblivious to the refugee crisis and
other similar problems.

Another reason why I enjoyed “Dead Horses” was the fact that the story was told from the point of a
view of a child. The boy seemed oblivious to the fact that there is a war going on and was totally
perplexed as to why all of the horses he came across were dead. Making the protagonist child also
means that it has a larger impact on the viewers, as children are usually seen as being innocent, full
optimism and excited for the future, which juxtaposes with this film as the protagonist doesn’t seem
to have much of a future or much hope.

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