EO A Deeply Moving Film

 

EO (2022)

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski

Skopia Films/Alien Films, 88 minutes, Not-rated.

In Polish, Italian, French, and English with subtitles.

★★★★★

 

 

 

Proverbs 12:10 holds that, “A righteous man cares for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” Based upon the movie EO, there are apparently more wicked people in the world than compassionate ones. EO is, by turns, heartwarming and heartbreaking.

 

EO was the first Polish film nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar. Director Jerzy Skolimowski  based EO on Robert Bresson’s 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar. It's not every day you see a movie from the point of view of a donkey, but you will certainly root for one named EO.

 

We meet EO in a circus in which he is in an act with a woman named Kassandra (Sandra Drzmalska) who loves her donkey. In recent years circuses have come under great pressure to eliminate animal acts, but EO is a warning that one-size-fits-all decision-making is not always the wisest course of action. EO is taken from a tearful Kassandra when the Polish state abruptly outlaws animal acts and seizes all circus livestock. Self-congratulatory officials hold a brief ceremony to read a press release and retire to the beer tent. They are smug in their assurance that they have ended animal exploitation, but they have given little thought to what comes next.

 

EO is loaded into a trailer from which he observes horses running free in a field, but he is destined to become a beast of burden. He toils for a farmer but won't eat because he is depressed. EO hears Kassandra's voice in his head and replays her embrace and kisses on his snout. His only happy moment is when Kassandra pays a visit, carrot muffin in hand and tears in her eyes. No wonder EO escapes from the farm and sets off in hope of finding her.

 

The film follows EO’s trials and travails as he traverses the countryside. At each stage he encounters humanity at its cruelest–a wolf left to by hunters to bleed out in the woods, soccer hooligans, drunken louts, a factory farm where caged foxes are killed for their fur, a greasy headbanger truck driver who snorts drugs and plays loud music, a desperate woman being solicited for sex. EO will even encounter a n’er do well named Mateo (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) who stashes him in the back of his car and takes him to a posh villa somewhere in Italy. EO roams an elaborate formal garden and perhaps overhears as Mateo is berated for his gambling debts by the Countess (Isabel Hubert). She is his mother-in-law and maybe something more. Naturally, EO doesn't wish to stay there either.

 

Forget that Skolimowski is an animal rights activist. Whether or not we agree with his implication that humankind enslaves animals, he's certainly endows EO with more decency than any person in the film other than Kassandra. Putting us inside the mind of a donkey is not an easy task but he and cinematographer Michal Dymek use clever camera angles to make us perceive that their lenses are the gateway into EO’s psyche. Pawel Mykietyn’s score adds immeasurably in suggesting what EO thinks in each situation he encounters. It is to his credit that he makes us feel peril, yearning, sadness, and resignation without resorting to melodramatic or maudlin tones.

 

EO features four different languages, but at times it feels as if the human words are just background noise. This is also to say that although EO isn't a silent film, the dialogue is quite sparse. After all, EO is the film's focus and Skolimowski wants to make a point about the one-sided power dynamic between animals and humans. Given the nominations and awards the film has garnered, one would have to say that he succeeded in his objective. Moreover, you would have to hunt far and wide to find a crank who did not like this film.

 

In an Anthropocene world, the odds are stacked against a lowly donkey. EO is such a deeply moving film that you wish to keep the tissue box by your side. It will certainly make you ponder the hollowness of phrases such as “dumb beast.” On a scale of nobility we can score this movie EO one, humankind zero.

 

Rob Weir