MA 15+, 87 minutes
5 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
If he has seen and done it all now, the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski who made his feature debut in 1960, has made a sharp, new career turn in his mid-80s. EO is a deeply empathetic perspective on the life of a gentle, vulnerable animal in the modern world.
The cast list features the names of the six Sardinian donkeys that performed EO, the eponymous donkey, in the shoot. One can only imagine how the pack had to be shuffled when one of the lead actors refused to do what was required. Skolimowski has since confirmed that donkeys are indeed stubborn, but my google search confirms they are not stupid.
The veteran filmmaker has been prolific. A screenwriter on films like Knife in the Water and Moonlighting, a director of startling dramas like Deep End, and a creative who likes to turn in a performance every now and then, as he did in Eastern Promises. The screenplay for EO is a collaboration with Ewa Piaskowska, his partner and frequent co-writer.
The colour red is there for our eyes only
Thrillers have often been his department. For him now, it was the right time to take a quantum leap, by honouring a famous French film that he says is the only one that ever drew him to tears. This was Robert Bresson’s Au Hazard Balthazar that came out in 1966, a time when cinema was taking bold steps.
That French filmmaker’s portrait of a donkey, shot in intimate black-and-white, has continued to be a bit of a challenge for audiences ever since. Some people have been happy to go along with this story told from the perspective of the animal, while others, even respectful film studies students, baulked at it.
Sandra Drzymalska and EO, a special bond. Image courtesy Hi Gloss
In the absence of the usual ways we identify with characters in screen drama, we are again being encouraged here to distanciate from, and evaluate, our world through making connection with a donkey. However, environmentalism is much more mainstream now, as is our understanding of the responsibility we have in protecting nature and its creatures, including those exported in the live trade.
Skolimowski’s film may also have wider appeal than Bresson’s ascetically minimalistic, somewhat harsh and demanding classic. There is colour, for a start, in Skolimowski’s turn. With plenty of significant reds in the beautiful images captured by cinematographer Michal Dymek of the rural landscapes in Poland and Italy through which the donkey roams.
The narrative starts at the circus where EO experiences love and is also subjected to cruelty. A young girl (Sandra Drzymalska) in red dress, one of the circus performers, has nothing but great affection for her co-star, but the idyll is about to end and events will cut the gentle creature loose in the Polish countryside. The animal’s point of view, its breathing and the world it sees and hears with those big expressive brown eyes and mobile ears, is quickly established. Donkeys checked out in my google search as quite intelligent and playful, in the right hands.
A world of freedom surges past him in thrilling slo-mo sequences as horses gallop through the fields
Making a point about possibilities. But the freedoms in the wider world are present alongside the dangers in the night forest, where there are owls, wolves and foxes, but mostly there are men. Nothing holds quite as much fear for EO as the scenes of human hunters making their way through the forest at night, or the brutal scenes of post-match football thuggery, or the single act of violence that takes places in one shocking moment.
On the journey, we suddenly find ourselves face to face with Isabelle Huppert in a puzzling vignette as The Countess angry with her feckless stepson (Lorenzo Zurzolo). As a priest and gambler, he may be a questionable character, but at least he saves the donkey from the butcher’s knife. On this picaresque journey, there are many surreal, beautiful and painful moments, and one or two odd ones.
Don’t be fooled by the colour red. While in many scenes it signifies love and generosity, it is not possible for donkeys to see it. The colour red is there for our eyes only. A minor detail, but of course a reminder that this film is as much mirror to us and our world, as it is a journey through the eyes of a donkey.
First published in the Canberra Times on 7 April 2023. Jane’s reviews are also published on Rotten Tomatoes