EO

Poland/Italy, 2022, 88 minutes, Colour.

Sandra Drzrymalska, Isabelle Huppert, Lorenzo Zurzola, Mateusz Kosckukiewicz.

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Eo a donkey – and his name intended to sound like a donkey. This is his story, a kind of EOdyssey as the events of his life and travels take him through Poland and to Italy.

Film buffs will be eagerly making comparisons with French director, Robert Bresson’s, 1956 classic, Au Hazzard, Baltazar, his invitation to an audience to share the experiences of a donkey. Eo is very much a 21^st-century donkey’s tale, empathy with the donkey, just as we take for granted saying a birds-eye view, this is a donkey’s eye view of people and the world around him. But, it is also the audience eye-view, looking through the lens at Eo, looking at what he looks at, but we can hear, we can observe, we can make connections. Eo does make emotional connections.

The first emotional connection we see is his circus performance with Kassandra, his seeming to enjoy this, his strong bond with Kassandra who manifests great affection for him. (And this is all presented with a pervading colour red, this colour coming back throughout the film, making some of the sequences, especially the walking of a mechanical dog, more than surreal.). We like Eo, the camera lens loves him, his face, his body, his trotting, the range of his activities.

The circus is disbanded because of bankruptcy issues and animal-lovers protests, transported with horses, life in a stable. Somebody has remarked that the film is something like a tour of contemporary Europe, from the donkey’s point of view, critical, and from the whole human point of view. There are scenes at a farm, there is an unexpected local football match, passionate fans, celebrations, the winners happy that he has wanted in, the opposition brutalising the fans and then bashing Eo. He recovers with the help of a sympathetic vet, a stable hand suggesting that Eo be put down, and later a moment of donkey irritation hoofing him.

He wanders, encounters a range of people, transported in a van and an interlude which we see and hear which Eo doesn’t, the driver chatting up a hungry local, inviting her into his truck, and then, shocking us, but Eo not knowing it, his throat is slit. Then another character comes in, a young man whose truck breaks down, wonders to the scene of the killing, chats with Eo and takes him off, thir eventually coming to an Italian château and the young man’s encounter with his stepmother, a surprise cameo from Isabelje Huppert. And, a shock revelation that he is a priest – a bit odd because the actor playing him was only 20 or 21 at the time. Some family complications and we return to travels with EO, turning up at a farm with cattle and being herded with them.

Writer-director, Jerzy Skolimowski has made films since the 1960s, some notable films in England early in his career, King, Queen, Knave, Deep End, and with his later films, a focus on his native Poland and the Solidarity movement of the 1980s, Moonlighting.

He won the Jury Prize at Cannes, 2022.

1. Audience response the discovering the central character is a donkey? Identifying with Eo, his perspectives? In bringing a human perspective, observing and interpreting character and events?
2. A Polish film, Polish sensibility, the variety of Polish locations, circus, farms, the open road, the football match, the pub celebration, the mountains, the spillway of the dam, into Italy, the Château, running with the horses, herded with the cattle?
3. The atmosphere of the musical score?
4. The surreal device of having the opening with pervasive bright red, the return of red to many of the sequences, and the surreal episode of the mechanical dog filmed in red?
5. Audiences adjusting after the opening, the circus act, Cassandra and her affection for Eo, the harsh circus and, cruel with Eo, the arrival of the bank officials, bankruptcy, closing the circus, the animal-lovers protests and defiance?
6. The director’s later statement that the film was motivated by love for animals?
7. Characters and events scene with a donkey’s perspective? The “psychologising” of the donkey, his looks and expressions, games, response to affection, response to cruelty (and hoofing the stable hand)? The suggestion of his having memories and their affecting his feelings?
8. The human perspective on the donkey’s perspective, observing, interpreting, knowing more about the characters than he did?
9. A journey through Poland into Italy, the range of people, ordinary life, farms, vets, the football match, the beating, the healing? The film’s commentary on the range of human behaviour?
10. The scenes with the horses, at the circus, travelling in the van, in the stables, the care in washing and grooming the horses and neglecting the donkey? Racing with the horses? The later scenes with the cattle? The images of other animals throughout the film, the foxes and their being hunted, kept, sold? The insects?
11. Sympathetic human beings, Kassandra, the vet, the truck driver, Vito, taking Eo, feeding him, talking to him, at the house – Eo not being aware of what was going on inside the Château?
12. The football sequence, the game, enthusiasm, the fans, the clashes, in the bar, the attack, and the bashing of Eo?
13. The episode with the truck driver, the hungry woman, his cheerfulness, giving her the food, joking about the sex, her rushing away, and then his throat being slit?
14. Vito and the Countess, his truck breaking down, observing, taking Eo, going home, his saying Mass, the Countess and her assistant, getting the phone call during the Mass, her going out, his standing at the altar? The meal, the situation, his stepmother, her selling the house, her tantrum with the crockery breaking, the cutlery, throwing them at Vito? The revelation of his gambling, her not all giving him any money? And the glimpse of the kiss?
15. The overall effect of watching such a different kind of film?