All wars are hell, especially so for horses. As told by Steven Spielberg, War Horse is an uplifting, perceptive pro-human drama that manages to focus our attention on the tribulations of a thoroughbred during the World War I without an amplification of its theme.

War Horse is a sweeping tale that basks in the light of golden-age filmmaking. One can see that right away as the camera flies over lush fields, prairies and hills – typical of the old westerns – in the film’s opening shot. The camera gradually brings us right to our star-horse’s birth (the scene is G-rated, like most of the film).

As the film progresses it maintains a sustained departure to today’s filmmaking, and most shockingly, from what my eye could judge, the regular Spielberg-esque direction. For any Spielberg enthusiast, not immediately identifying the texture is a harrowing ordeal. Perhaps this lapse is a carefully umpired resolve by both director and his regular cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski. Don’t get me wrong: the film is beautifully shot, and it would be a fool’s errand caviling Kaminski’s craft. Still, the palette is grand as it is serene.

At times War Horse’s storytelling is indebted to John Ford. This isn’t Spielberg’s first homage. Years ago with A.I. – The Artificial Intelligence, he successfully created an atmosphere that was both Spielberg and Kubrick. War Horse miraculously manages something similar.

As soon as the horse is born, we unconsciously become its anchor along with Albert (Jeremy Irvine), a youngling whose initial fascination turns to resolve and becomes the film’s main story-thread. A year later the horse is taken from his mother and sold in the market – this is a slight, subdued scene that Spielberg milks for all its emotional stock.

The strapping horse sparks an instant bidding war and is bought by Albert’s father (Peter Mullan), for the costly sum of 30 guineas. Albert names the horse Joey and trains him to plow the field. Unlike most men, Joey is quick to understand his position, and his owner’s predicament. If he does not rake for harvest the family loses its land.

As war breaks out, Joey is sold to the army from whence we move into chunks of side-stories. The first involves a British Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston, Loki from Thor), then two German brothers who commandeer Joey and subsequently desert the army (The Reader’s David Kross and Leonhard Carow) and finally a French farmer and his spirited but ailing granddaughter (Niels Arestrup, Celine Buckens) offer him a brief paradise away from the enveloping conflict.

Joey, though about as dependable and big-eyed as any Black Beauty, quickly learns that war is horrific, both for animals and men – and we, as audience and critics, continue our attestation that Spielberg is the master of the cinematic medium. In one of the film’s strongest scenes, Joey faces off a tank and then runs headfirst through a number of barbwire barricades, right into No Man’s Land, between the Germans and the British. Here the film affirms its anti-war status as soldiers from both sides hold a temporary truce to free the badly injured and thoroughly immobilised horse.

War Horse is rated PG-13. Like Saving Private Ryan, the film’s imagination is pitiless in its severity and glorious in its sublimity.