By Jeffrey Sipe and Nina Rodriguez
The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with sad eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, and endures the wheel of fortune randomly turning his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But not even for a moment does he lose his innocence.
At 84 years old, legendary Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski has taken cinematic language to its highest artistic expression, reflecting on the human condition through a donkey’s eyes in this Cannes-winning film. Mixing the animal look of films like Annauds «The Bear» with his experimental style, Skolimowski uses minimal resources to create a unique audiovisual experience and a pathetic fable of the status quo of humanity. The allegory takes the form of a tragicomic joke.
It’s been nearly 60 years since Robert Bresson sprang «Au hasard Balthazar» on the world, but in Jerzy Skolimowski’s updated and rewritten version of the story of a donkey that goes from pampered to abused, not much in the human condition seems to have improved.
EO is not a remake, per se, but for anyone who has seen «Au hasard Balthazar,» it is impossible to watch EO without constantly thinking of Bresson’s 1966 film. Skolimowski focuses more on the abuse of animals practiced by humans than Bresson. Still, he is also very successful in allowing the audience to see the world through the eyes of the innocent, defenseless donkey. Doing so, he puts us in a position to observe the cruelty of humans, their lack of respect for animals, their hatred of each other, and their rare acts of kindness. We can’t help but wonder, by the end of the film, which beings on earth are truly the beasts.
EO begins the film as a performer in a Wroclaw, Poland, circus where he is cared for and loved by his trainer Kasandra. The authorities shatter her heart when they show up to remove all the circus animals. Little does EO know, however, that the exquisite human love he received from Kasandra will be impossible to replicate. The donkey begins a journey that starts with a football game in Poland that sees the losers behave like thugs and attack the winning team afterward in a restaurant. If humans can’t figure out such hooliganism over a football game, how can a donkey?
Much more than a story about an abandoned donkey, EO is a metaphor for humans’ behavior, insecurities, and dreams. EO is treated the same as humans, slightly outside the loop, and finding their aspirations stymied repeatedly. In an early scene, as EO is taken from the circus in a truck, he observes a herd of horses galloping wildly in their freedom. He goes to a horse farm, where he dolefully watches the horses receive far better treatment than he gets. He undergoes more abuse as he continues his journey until he encounters a defrocked priest who appears to be suffering from some of the same afflictions experienced by EO.
While moving, EO is also unintentionally comical, especially when EO appears to be envying those wild horses. It seems straight from a children’s book. Although EO does make the jump from animal to metaphorical human, it is impossible, despite the penetrating message of the film, to forget that we are watching a donkey.
«I’m afraid that the general attitude of human beings towards animals is totally unfair, and many times it is just cruel and barbaric,» Skolimoswki said. «I must say I cut my own meat consumption by at least two-thirds, and some of the members of my crew actually stopped eating meat completely.»
With a little luck, the film and its seductive cinematography will spark more than just sympathy for animals.
EO arrives in Mexico with a long list of award nominations, including the Oscar for Best International Feature. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes and was named one of 2022’s Top Ten films by Cahier du Cinema. The film will screen at Compartimento Cinematografico in San Miguel de Allende from March 29.
