The Black Stallion

This was one of my favorite childhood movies.  Some of you might better recognize it from the book by Walter Farley, and having read and watched both, there are few differences.  Well, one major one, but other than that...moving on...

What is so wonderful about this movie is that there's hardly any talking in it.  And there doesn't need to be.

Boy gets shipwrecked on island with wild horse.  Boy befriends Horse.  They get rescued.

That's half the movie right there, and the movie is two hours long.  And aside from the first ten minutes, there's no talking for that entire stretch of time.  Just beautiful music and amazing scenery and well chosen scenes to demonstrate the passage of time and the Boy's success in surviving alone.  And his befriending a wild Horse. 

!Horse!

The second half of the movie is the return to civilization and the Boy's desire to train his Horse to race.  Again, much of this is accomplished with very little talking. 

In fact, if this movie were a person, I'd have to call it laconic. 

But it's not boring!  I swear it isn't!  It managed to hold me enthralled as a child more times than I can count.  I loved this movie.  It was beautiful and interesting and it still is!  I just rewatched it and I loved it all over again!  Perhaps with a bit more appreciation for the filmmaking process and the difficulty of training a horse to respond to commands from a movie trainer.

But for anyone who had a favorite movie from childhood who watches it again years later, isn't it strange to see our protagonists look so young?  'Cause when I watched this when I was a kid, Boy looked so old!  Or at least, old enough.  Now he looks like he's 9, or maybe a small 11. 

'sigh.'

But maybe my love for this movie was unusual for a child.  I did love a lot of strange movies when I was growing up, and a couple of them were 3 or so hours long.  Ben-Hur!  The Ten Commandments! 

But if any of you are brave enough to dip back into childhood and watch a truly well-made movie about a boy and his horse, watch The Black Stallion.  It is probably the artsiest movie I love, and I don't care.  :)