Work Horse

Charlotte Dumas is a portraitist of animals. Cats, dogs, white tigers, elephants, wolves, horses – they have all passed before her camera. In addition to intriguing photos and Polaroids, since 2012 this has also resulted in films in which Dumas focuses on animals and their relationships to humans. She devotes particular attention to horses: from the free-roaming descendants of horses from the Wild West to those that pull the ceremonial hearses at military funerals. In her third film , Dumas follows a pair of draft horses, Tarsan and Tarmo, that work in the forests of northern Sweden. Dragging logs is heavy, monotonous work, but the animals get along well together, trudging through the daily routine as a tight-knit team. The risk of anthropomorphism – attributing human qualities to animals – is always there, but the intimate framing, relaxed pace and the absence of sound have the opposite effect. By the end of the film, we start to imagine life as a horse.