It recalls the whipping of a horse in the Italian city of Turin that is rumoured to have caused the mental breakdown of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

The film is in black-and-white, shot in only 30 long takes by Tarr's regular cameraman Fred Kelemen,[3] and depicts the repetitive daily lives of the horse-owner and his daughter.

The film begins with a likely apocryphal story about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's mental breakdown on 3 January 1889 when he stayed at number six, Via Carlo Alberto, Turin, Italy.

The film then moves to the countryside, possibly in the 19th century Great Hungarian Plain, where the coach driver lives with his daughter and the horse.

In the evening a neighbor Bernhard visits to buy some brandy; he claims that the nearby town has been completely destroyed, and blames the apocalyptic scenario on both God and man.

The focus is not on mortality, but rather the daily life: "We just wanted to see how difficult and terrible it is when every day you have to go to the well and bring the water, in summer, in winter... All the time.

"[4] Tarr has also described The Turin Horse as the last step in a development throughout his career: "In my first film I started from my social sensibility and I just wanted to change the world.

"[4] The idea for the film had its origin in the mid 1980s, when Tarr heard Krasznahorkai retell the story of Nietzsche's breakdown, and ended it by asking what happened to the horse.

Krasznahorkai eventually wrote The Turin Horse in prose text after the production of the duo's previous film, the troublesome The Man from London.

[9] However, in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel on 20 February, Tarr accused the Hungarian government of obstructing artists and intellectuals, in what he referred to as a "culture war" led by the cabinet of Viktor Orbán.

The critical consensus states, "Uncompromisingly bold and hauntingly beautiful, Bela Tarr's bleak parable tells a simple story with weighty conviction.

The rigor of art can have the opposite effect, and The Turin Horse is an example — an exceedingly rare one in contemporary cinema — of how a work that seems built on the denial of pleasure can, through formal discipline, passionate integrity and terrifying seriousness, produce an experience of exaltation.

"[15] Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter wrote from the Berlinale: "Fans of Tarr’s somber and sedate films will know what they are in for and will no doubt find the time well spent.

Others might soon grow weary of measured pace of the characters as they dress in their ragged clothes, eat boiled potatoes with their fingers, fetch water, clean their bowls, chop wood and feed the horse."

Bennett complimented the cinematography, but added: "That does not, however, make up for the almost complete lack of information about the two characters, and so it is easy to become indifferent to their fate, whatever it is.

"[16] Variety's Peter Debruge also noted how the narrative provided "little to cling to", but wrote: "Like Hiroshi Teshigahara's life-changingly profound The Woman in the Dunes ... by way of Bresson, Tarr's tale seems to depict the meaning of life in a microcosm, though its intentions are far more oblique.

... As the premise itself concerns the many stories not being told (Nietzsche is nowhere to be found, for instance), it's impossible to keep the mind from drifting to all the other narratives unfolding beyond the film's sparse horizon.