Suffering from a shipwreck, Alec, a young smart and courageous guy, who meets an Arabian black stallion on the ship with whom he makes a strong friendship, as he begins to train it to be the fastest horses in the world and race all horses, the thing that inspires his life.
It does what the middle section of Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' does too: It makes us kids again in the sense that everything we see feels rich, thrilling and most of all new.
Carroll Ballard's feature debut is rich in adventure, suspense and mythical elements and marks the prize-winning short-subjects director as a major talent.
will naturally speak to children, but without excluding those adults who still remember what it was like to be a child and how to see the world through a child's eyes-as difficult an artistic feat as I can imagine
The director, Carroll Ballard, and the cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel, have captured so many lavishly beautiful images that the cumulative effect is one of repetition.
TV Guide
December 11, 2007
A simple film, sentimental but not mawkish, as enjoyable for adults as it is for children.
The first half of the picture, set on the desert island, is magnificent, lightly invoking the eerie stillness and spiritual ambience of Australian efforts like Walkabout and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The second part is far more conventional.
