This is a perseverance story about a boy named Connor who risks everything to protect a horse named Flash, with whom he has developed an emotional relationship. Could a deeply disturbing bestiality tale underlie this family film? I do doubt whether director Simon Wincer had it in him to execute such a subtle self-parody, even if he did live up to his name when he read the script. But whether or not the overtones of this film are deliberate, they are thoroughly amusing.
To see the dark side of this story, you need to take a step back and appreciate the asinine stupidity of relating emotionally to an animal. Unlike in Disney, animals don't possess the required anthropomorphic characteristics. Thus the very basis of the film - that the characters treat the titular horse as special, emotional and human - can only leave us guessing as to what mental instability or paraphilia the characters suffer from.
The plot of the film is little more than a succession of sacrifices that the humans make for the horse. Whilst this is portrayed sentimentally, you can decide for yourself at which point it goes beyond the suspension of disbelief, passes the stop at sanity, and ends up simply humorous. To begin, Connor falls in love with Flash but needs $1000 to afford him. So Connor's father takes a perilous five-month job at sea to raise the cash, intentionally landing Connor in the solitary care of his weak grandmother. Without the father's income, the grandmother goes to work in a factory, and this leads to her death from fatigue and a heart attack. Living alone, Connor now decides that he must buy his grandmother a top-notch coffin, but lacks the $1000 to buy the nicest one - see where this is going? To raise this cash, he sells the majority of his worldly possessions to the sum of $500. And finally, he sells Flash. It's almost like the plot itself is poking fun at this idiocy.
The truly interesting thing about this film is the depiction of Flash himself. In a mocking realisation of the characters' delusions, Flash is actually portrayed more humanly than the humans. Several close-up shots on the horse's eyes emphasise the horse's sentience, consciousness and intelligence. Unlike the humans, Flash is always elegant, upright and clean - and knows better than to attempt emotional connections with any of the other horses in the area. Furthermore, he stares with nothing but disdain when the humans attempt to saddle, ride, cage, buy, sell or communicate with him, as if he understands both the foolery and the injustice of such treatment.
Consider the following scenes. When Connor begins to attempt riding Flash, Flash eludes him with a turn of the head that says "Get the hell away from me." Connor laughs it off, as if the horse is being playful. Making a second approach, Flash kicks Connor into a pile of manure. When finally Connor makes it onto Flash's back, Flash escapes his pen, runs wildly towards a lake, halts suddenly, and throws Connor into the lake. Again, this is taken to be playful; but the close-ups on the horse's eyes tell rather of impish mischief, and a revelry in the fact that, whilst the humans take him to be so simple, he is actually the more intelligent of them. Indeed, Flash connects with the viewer more directly than the humans do. Not only does his eye stare straight at you through the fourth wall, he also shares our incredulity at the strangeness of the humans' equestrian obsession.
Flash is not only mischievous but hateful too. When Connor and his father begin to build a fence to cage Flash in, the music is exaggeratedly glorious, bright and happy - so happy, in fact, that it makes us question the notion of caging the horse in; for his eyes tell of nothing but disdain. If Flash is anthropomorphic - and the humans clearly treat him as such - then why are they caging him up? Not only does this reveal the contradictions inherent in the humans' warped minds, it actually paints them as villains. As a sentient creature, Flash is entitled to be very annoyed about his captivity, and we can see not only mischief but vengeance when Flash kicks Connor away.
All of this gives us a fresh perspective on the plot. Not only are the humans behaving with animal stupidity, sacrificing everything for a horse they've now sold; the horse is behaving with humane intelligence, desperate to be free of his captors' oppression. With this as the backdrop, the second half of the film continues with further foolishness: Connor leaves home to live with Flash's new owner, who ultimately wants to put Flash down. At this point, Flash finally starts acting friendly towards Connor, which is a frighteningly intelligent thing to do, and the two of them escape.
But let's not forget that this is theft, which is the least of the crimes Connor begins to commit as he sets off on a "rightful" journey to New York - with police on his tail, a criminal record on his head, and Flash between his legs - where he hopes to meet his father on return from his five month seafaring job. It's a great distance and time is short: finally the story becomes just a little bit gripping and gritty, but no less contradictory. If Flash and Connor are friends, why does Connor always tether him - would Flash run away? Because our answer would have to be yes, this completely undermines the strife of the remainder of the film.
The film ends weakly, with Connor reuniting with his father, becoming a national Hero, somehow not being prosecuted, and being given Flash back. But the icing on the cake is the climactic freeze-frame of Connor stroking Flash, which is perhaps the most disturbingly romantic image of the entire film.
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