Set "somewhere in the East, around 1856", this action/costume film is a revenge story between two 'couples' of brothers. Jakub and Vladimir, two young Cossacks who suffer terrible humiliations during their military training and Roman and Elias (the two horse thieves of the title). After a terrible tragedy, Jakub leaves his regiment and tracks down the two thieves with what looks like a samurai's sense of honor and dignity. Shot in beautiful landscapes, with a minimum of dialogs, an impressive music, and an epic ambition, this blind and brutal race towards a metamorphosis (to free himself, Jakub will also have to become an outlaw) is also a study of dependence struggles (the two elder ones taking a role of father and imposing their choices to their youngest brothers). To appreciate this film, one needs to be sensitive to children's stories with a simple framework, disregard a certain awkwardness, and accept a very literary narration (three chapters announced by three titles: Him, Them, Manhunt), and a depiction of rough characters, the oldest thief (Roman, played by Grégoire Colin) almost turning into a kind of caricature.
'Voleurs de chevaux' is a sort of equestrian western which was obviously made on a low budget. The reconstitution of a mythical European mid-19th century often misses what the big Masters made of it (one can't help thinking of Kubrick with Barry Lyndon, or Kurozawa with Dersou Ouzala). Micha Vald took a risk, but there is an undeniable 'soul' which animates his beautiful story: the confrontation, crimes and vendetta of the four brothers, bathed in the cold light of a poisonous and solitary nature. Between the end of their adolescence and the beginning of maturity, the four characters compose a striking fresco, which owes most of its success to the actors' performances. One can't help taking one's hat off to this group of very young actors who support the whole film: Adrien Jolivet and Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet on one side, and Grégoire Colin and François-René Dupont on the other side. We won't forget the charm of theses ferocious dogs for quite a while.
