Year of the Horse

Unless you're a Neil Young die-hard, you're likely to find Year of the Horse unbearable. What's especially shocking is that it comes from a talented director like Jarmusch, who is known for intelligent, thought-provoking pictures. Evidently, his feature film making ability doesn't translate into the documentary realm. Year of the Horse is one of 1997's ugliest dogs. It's supposed to be a high- energy concert film that captures the intensity and camaraderie of the band members on and off- stage. What it turns out to be, however, is an overlong home movie with bad video and barely- adequate sound.

This film is a great documentary, i was not a fan of Neil young but was won over by this kooky depiction of Young's band crazy horse, Great music interesting people, the real life subjects of this movie resemble Jarmusch's loveable offbeat fictional charicters. A good Friday night film watch it

Neil Young and his favorite back-up band Crazy Horse are filmed during his 1996 tour. Splendid concert footage(filmed in various formats to acompany the ragged music) is mixed with honest backstage footage from 1996, 1986 and 1976. The result is one the 90's best Rock'n' Roll pictures in a LONG time. Anyone interested in Rock should check out the distorted piece.

Granted, non-fans of Neil Young will not like this film, but as one of his biggest fans (I have over 35 CDs of his music, solo and with CSN, Buffalo Springfield and others), I loved this film. Many people were put off by the grain of the Super 8 sequences, but I think that visual scheme ADDS to the mood and feel of his music.

I also liked the varied song list. Not only does he play songs from his most recent album of the time (Broken Arrow, an OK, but not great album) but he revisits his classics (Tonight's the Night, Barstool Blues, Like A Hurricane). It's a great sampler.

I also liked the weird humor that Young and Crazy Horse infuse into the documentary sequences. Many people were understandably turned off by this (including my mother and she LIKES Neil's music!)but I thought of it as in the Frank Zappa-vein of bizarre personal humor that only a handful of people fully get.

NOTE: If you buy this film, purchase the Canadian import version. It is presented in widescreen format (1.77:1 not 1.66:1 as listed in technical specs) The USA Films release is panned and scanned and believe me Jarmusch makes the most of the frame, no matter how small it is)It costs more, but believe me, it's worth the extra money!

I DO like Neil Young and Crazy Horse, yet I felt Neil's simplistic guitar solos took up more screen-time than I would have liked. That is my only reservation. Jarmusch' good-natured approach and sympathetic questions makes this watchable and revealing. Neil's father obviously has great respect for his son. And Frank Sampedro's cynical retorts were very funny! More to the point - "Like a hurricane" still sounds like a rock classic.