I recall watching it in grade school (mid-to-late 70s), it was an ‘arty’ movie. I have the impression that there was very little, if any, dialogue spoken in the course of it.
The main gist of it was a troubled, mute young boy (possibly autistic or developmentally disabled) bonding with his favorite horse.
What I remember most was it abruptly turning into a kind of horror movie in the end: the boy is riding his horse on a very grey, foreboding day out in gloomy looking plain. Another rider with a long cloak happens to be galloping around the plain as well, and comes up close to the boy.
The ‘face’ of this other rider is revealed to be a skull – the rider is DEATH!! The boy gallops away, but the horse gets stuck in quicksand or some type of bog. It can’t get out, no matter how hard it bucks. The boy is thrown off, but manages to run back to his farm and get help. All the farmhands rush to the rescue and try pulling the horse out of the sinking pit, to no avail. The horse sinks and finally drowns. Everyone sadly walks away.
And that’s it. The End.
Does this sound familiar at all to anyone?
