A rich woman, Marcia, is bored with her life divided among a husband, a lover, and parties. She feels her life has no meaning and then she decides to go with her son to her country house in the mountains. Later on she'll be joined by her husband. She wants peace and maybe she nurses the hope of finding herself in the solitude of nature.
Arriving there, she wanders around alone or together with her son. There's a ranch owner in the neighborhood riding around looking for an escaped horse. A black horse. He asks Marcia: "Have you seen my horse? It's black and wild". This black horse will be the film's symbol for freedom. The husband arrives, they film themselves with a camera, laugh and make jokes. Sometimes the black horse is seen running around and the ranch owner goes on looking for his horse. One notices that Marcia likes the black horse and roots for it. There's a scene in which she is driving a car, with her son sitting near her, and the horse is running beside the car - she takes the camera and films the horse. The scene is underlined by classical music. Two main shots: 1) The black horse running wild and free. 2) Marcia laughing happily holding her camera.
Near the end of the film, when she is back home, she sadly watches her film with the black horse running. The same classical piece underlines it. The End.
That is all the story is about. The main character is probably the black horse.
But jokes aside, I think that Walter Hugo Khouri was inspired by Antonioni's "Deserto Rosso", when he made "Corpo Ardente". There's the same bleak landscape. And the photography is a mystery to me - it is a black & white with shades of color, or rather a color film transmuted into black & white. The landscape seems to dissolve into a shining white and the black horse running free serves as a counterpoint.
Antonioni's "Deserto Rosso" is a powerful study about the shattered life of a woman (Monica Vitti), but "Corpo Ardente" sinks into nothingness in spite of its beautiful images and its several symbols. Visually speaking "Corpo Ardente" is a beautiful film. And the naiveté of its symbols is charming.
