A new film with an “equine” theme is arriving on the big screen later this month. However, this is particular horse movie is designated adult-only viewing.
The German film Piaffe is a highly sexual tale about a woman with a tail ‒ a horse’s tail to be exact ‒ and her sexual awakening. This is the debut feature from Berlin visual artist Ann Oren and follows Eva (played by Simone Bucio), an introvert who takes over her sister Zara’s job as a Foley artist. Eva struggles to create sounds for a commercial featuring a dressage horse performing a piaffe, and then a horsetail starts growing out of her body. (Note: the horse in the movie is Don Alonso, ridden by German dressage rider Catherine Mayer.) “Empowered by her tail, she lures a botanist into an affair, through a game of submission. Piaffe is a visceral journey into control, gender, and artifice,” is how the movie is described.
The trailer shows images of Eva at a stable, learning more about horses and how they sound, and eventually growing her own thick lustrous black tail that she wears outside her clothing and brushes with pride. There are also kinky and sensual sex scenes (between humans, thankfully!). Sound weird enough for you?
The film is receiving positive reviews including one by IndieWire, which gave it an A rating. “Piaffe plants seeds on a rich seam of subjects —from gender and sexuality, to nature and control — without synthesizing them in an easy-to-read ending. It is the kind of film that demands to be seen and written about by a wide variety of people, for it is unlikely that any two people will come away feeling like they watched the same picture.”
While not a movie intended for horse-loving fans of Black Beauty or Seabiscuit, Piaffe asks the audience to consider what it means to be human, to empathize and accept, and how we define what is normal.
Watch the trailer here: