*War Horse*: Environmental Film or Animal Rights Plea?

Steven Spielberg’s War Horse (2011), an epic anti-War drama confronting the fight for survival of a Devon horse named Joey in the no-man zones of World War I France, illustrates many of Spielberg’s recurring themes:  a character searching for meaning beyond himself, tension between a father and his son, and an optimistic vision of family and rural life. 

The film also addresses our relationship with the environment in a variety of ways, highlighting the interdependent relationships humanity shares with the natural world. It effectively illustrates the connections between human and nonhuman nature with its focus on the relationship between Joey and his owner’s son, Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine). The scenes before, during, and after battles also demonstrate the horrific consequences of modern warfare to people, animals, and the natural world, a devastating human and ecological disaster leaving clear evidence that, as the film tells us, “The war has taken everything from everyone.” 

But the film moves beyond more traditional disaster themes by illuminating everyday eco-disasters associated with our basic needs.  For example, Joey, a swift and strong thoroughbred, must prove he can plow a field for turnips to ensure the Narracott family maintains their shelter and the surrounding land that provides their food. When the turnip crop fails and war is declared, Albert’s father, Ted (Peter Mullan) sells the horse to the British army to pay the farm lease and, again, secure those basic needs. 

Because a father believes his family can survive only if he sells his son’s well-trained horse, Joey must endure horrific war journey that includes participating in traditional cavalry battles, and hauling heavy artillery for both British and German army brigades, a task that kills dozens of other horses seen piled in mass graves but proves Joey’s strength and, perhaps, demonstrates the film's attempts at an animal rights argument. 

This drive for basic needs and eco-disasters associated with them also includes humanity. Albert follows Joey into this warzone and nearly loses his sight. Despite racing across “no-man-zone” and trapping himself in rolls of barbed wire when a German officer sets him free, Joey and Albert are reunited, this time in a reunion that saves Joey’s life. 

In a romantic ending typical of a Spielberg film, Albert rides Joey across a field toward his family farm with a sun setting behind them. In the final scenes of the film, Albert and his father embrace, breaking the tension between them while Joey, swathed in a rosy sunset, seems to look on. In War Horse, Joey saves the family in multiple ways, then, moving beyond providing the basic physical needs we need to survive and providing a means to reunite a father and his son. War Horse, despite its stereotyped characters and overly sentimental plotline, effectively highlights humanity’s interdependent relationship with the natural world.