Armand one of Richard Burton splendid roles. the convincing performance of Peter Firth. a good play. short, one of movies who remains a web of questions, emotions, stains of feelings because it is a kind of descent in yourself. sure, many critics , result of nostalgia for play adaptation on stage. but it is not a version. only a precise film inspired by the Schaffer universe. the director does an admirable work first for refuse of confrontation with the text. it is a splendid exploration of details and a fight between two manners to discover life. it is a precise construction using few extraordinaries images. a film about lost and axis of life, about values and need to escape from a fake image of world. it is necessary to see it. not only for acting - it is beautiful at whole. not for subject - it could be not new. but for the grace of details. and for the pillars- questions who can give another nuance , for two hours to an ordinary day.

Robert J. Maxwell Peter Shaffer's screenplay ought to have made a fascinating and puzzling story although, to be sure, this isn't director Sidney Lumet's usual territory. Lumet handles torment deftly enough but the torment is found in New York City.Here, the setting is England, and Lumet does his best, as do the performers, but it seems to me that they're all hobbled by a screenplay that mixes all kinds of confused metaphysics with some extraordinary psychopathology.Peter Firth plays a rather ordinary English lad who has been fascinated by horses since childhood. Okay, lots of girls find horses sexy, but Firth's equipoise is such that he's obsessed with them and loses touch with the humdrum world of his family and friends. He worships these dumb brutes.He's confined to a funny farm after a savage attack on half a dozen horses at the stable he works in -- a scene based on a real incident. Under the care of Richard Burton, a psychiatrist, he reveals, little by little, the developments that led up to this heinous act.Briefly, he's come to think of horses as some kind of Godhead. He fantasizes about stripping naked and riding them through the night, sharing food with them, caressing them, freeing them from their chains even through self sacrifice.Then he's confronted by a posh girl at the stables named Jill. She's played by Jenny Agutter. Agutter's tastes run more to the physical than the theological. She's attracted to him and tries to seduce him in the loft of the stable, while the horses below snuffle and stomp. Now, Jenny Agutter is a very attractive young lady with the face of an Alien from outer space and a figure at once sinewy and voluptuous. Firth is a guy who can get off by thinking about riding horses bareback and in the nude, but he can't manage to be turgid while making love to Agutter. Right away, we're convinced this kid is really sick.All the while he's writhing on top of her, he's thinking about the horses. He believes they're staring at him. You know, "Our God is a jealous God"? So he throws out the naked Agutter and puts out the eyes of the horses.And what is Doctor Burton's response to all this? He's JEALOUS of the kid's passion! His own life is that of an urban bourgeois. He's been married to the same sensible woman for years and theirs has become what family therapists call a companionate marriage. Her job is to run the comfortable house. His job is to make the salad while she prepares dinner. He feels his life lacks ardor because he doesn't suffer from transcendental zoophilia.There are a few striking moments in the film: (1) when Firth goes for his first pony ride at the beach; (2) a nicely photographed scene when Firth gallops a horse through the fields and evidently ejaculates; (3) the fully nude episode with Jenny Agutter in the loft; and (4) the monstrous attack on the innocent horses.The rest is talk. Fully blown talk, elegant in grammar and imagery, not at all like the garden-variety speech that people use in everyday life. For my taste, admittedly warped, there are too many scenes of Richard Burton looming over his recalcitrant patient and shouting, "TELL me!" Burton does the best he can. His voice is incomparable but the character is so sullen that his presence brings little joy to the screen. Firth has the juiciest part.The model of psychosis we see in this movie is supposed to be based on an historical incident but, man, does it romanticize madness. Firth's character doesn't do any of the things that ordinary psychotics do. His gibberish is the gibberish of James Joyce in "Finnegans Wake." The only REALLY odd thing he does, aside from spurning Agutter, is to blind those horses. He doesn't go about in tattered clothing. He doesn't speak to himself. He doesn't masturbate in public. He's lively and clever, rather than flat and empty.I wonder, too, if some of the story is at least in part a joke from the author. Peter Shaffer, the playwright, has a twin brother Anthony who also writes plays ("Sleuth"). And Firth's mother has a line in which she attributes Firth's initial fascination with horses to the fact that their genus is "Equus" and the kid had never seen a word with "two yous" before. Well, with "Equus" on one side and "Sleuth" on the other, the equupoise is nearly perfect.

thinker1691 There are many recesses in the mind which begin with a question and extend as far back as the unconscious will allow. Mystery on the other hand begins with a question and usually expects the rational mind to solve it. On a cold night on an English farm, Alan Strang (Peter Firth) a naked youth strokes, plays, rides and makes passionate love to his beloved companion, a beautiful horse. However, instead of a final embrace of love, the youth cries piteously, then blinds him and five other horses. The police are summoned, the youth is arrested, charged, found guilty and then the court must decide what to do with the very troubled boy. The presiding judge decides a mental evaluation is necessary to discover the lad's destructive behavior. Enter Doctor Dysart (Richard Burton) a specialist who begins to identify with the boy's search for understanding, passion and love. While the unfolding mystery begins to illuminate the reason why the boy killed his lover, the doctor also realizes in order to 'cure' him and make him 'Normal' he must eviscerate him into an adult with almost no hope of ever loving anyone without suffering the consequences of reality. A reality which includes his opinionated, inwardly-timid father (Colin Blakely), religious overbearing mother (Joan Plowright) and Jill Mason (Jenny Agutter) with whom he has an affair with in front of his God. The film is a monument of true art and was praised on Broadway and then later in this film. Both Burton and Peter Firth received acclaim, praise and many accolades for their superior performances. The story was written by Peter Shaffer, directed by Sidney Lumet and is considered a Classic on both stage and screen. *****

preppy-3 Stable boy Alan Strang (Peter Firth) has blinded a number of horses and no one can figure out why. Psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) tries to find out why.I've never seen the stage play so I can't compare it to that but, on its own, this is a pretty dull movie. For starters the main character Alan was an incredibly unlikable jerk. I couldn't have cared less about what happened to him. I thought it was laughably obvious--I had figured out what was going on long before they actually tell us. The pacing in this one is leaden--every scene seems to be dragged out as much as possible. Also the symbolism and "meaning" of this film is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I actually started to get insulted that everything was being spelled out for us--and in an incredibly slow manner too. It seems the filmmakers thought the audience was composed of a bunch of idiots. It also has a sequence of truly horrifying violence at the end that really didn't need to have been shown. Also there's plenty of nudity in this mostly by Peter Firth.The only thing saving this from being a total disaster was the acting. Joan Plowright is good as Strang's mother and Firth was also good in a very difficult role. But this is Burton's film all the way. He's just superb in his role and manages to single-handedly save this from totally unwatchable. Still, his great acting can't save this film from being a total bore. A 4--and that's just for Burton. This was a critical bomb when it came out--it's easy to see why.