Horse Being

An odd little mix of avant garde and documentary, HORSE-BEING recalled for me primarily Robinson Devor's ZOO (2007), which addresses an even more esoteric (and shocking) sexual topic with just as much obliqueness. The film centers around Karen, the alternate persona of an I-believe-unnamed Frenchman, visiting Florida to fulfil his bizarre sexual proclivities. He's not trans or genderqueer, really (he states this upfront), but adopts Karen as the first of his alternate personae, a gateway into an even stranger equine-self that he uses to engage in pony play with a Wilford Brimley-esque Florida rancher.

This idea of gateway alter egos, or the crisscrossing of various masks one puts on while engaging in such bizarre sexual play, is fascinating, and the film would do well to probe its protagonist's thoughts on the subject further. Instead, it pads out huge portions of its running time with artistic montages set to hymnals and pseudo-religious music. While I appreciate the idea of trying to do something more than a straight-forward documentary, when you've stumbled on a subject as strange and provocative as this one, it seems a crime not to fully explore it. As with a fine steak, sometimes it's best to just throw the meat on the grill and let the quality be the star. HORSE-BEING comes tarted up a la francaise, with all the butter and fixings, and isn't the better for it.