Of Horses And Men review

Comprising six interlocking tales set in and around a remote Icelandic community that favours horses over machines, Benedikt Erlingsson’s masterfully controlled debut is a skewed delight. The vignettes are by turns blackly comic, tragic and romantic – sometimes all at once – and a deliciously dry humour breezes through the chill visuals.

Among many startling images is a stallion mounting a mare while her owner is seated in the saddle, and a man slitting open his ride and crawling inside (a la The Empire Strikes Back ), to survive a snow blizzard. Wonderful.