It’s hard to find a word that best describes the genre-defying “The Wanting Mare,” except for maybe “impressive.” Not quite science-fiction — at least not in any conventionally pulpy way — this arty post-apocalyptic mood piece is mostly a triumph of DIY persistence for the writer-director Nicholas Ashe Bateman, who reportedly spent five years working on the digital effects to make a sparse set look like an entire ruined world.
Bateman only hints at where and when we are. We’re told at the start that in the land of Anmaere, there’s a swelteringly hot, crime-ridden city called Whithren, where once a year an enormous cargo ship sends some of the local wild horses across the water to a much colder and apparently less dangerous continent. Residents of Whithren spend much of their time trying to figure out a way to sail away.