Starring: Sandra Drzymalska, Lorenzo Zurzolo, Isabelle Huppert, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz
Distributor: Hi Gloss Entertainment
Runtime: 87 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2023
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This Polish film pointedly comments on society as it follows a circus donkey, Eo, on an emotional journey across Europe. Eo encounters good and bad people and experiences joy and pain.
This drama road film, loosely inspired by the 1966 French movie masterpiece Au Hasard Balthazar, was directed by Robert Bresson, shows the adventures of a doomed donkey. This film follows the life of a donkey Eo, with the help of six different actors. Eo escapes from captivity in a Polish circus, when his circus has to close down.
The movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards in 2023, and it shared the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. It won the New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best International Film in 2022 and was voted as one of top five Foreign Language Films by the National Board of Review. It was also awarded Best Foreign Language Film by the National Society of Film Critics in 2023.
Most societies have story-telling and fables that feature anthropomorphised animals as characters. [Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, intentions and emotions to animals.] In the film, animal behaviour is used to explain, or offer commentary on, naturally occurring phenomena in humans, who are willing or unwilling participants in significant historical events.
The film brilliantly targets the emotions that surround Eo in how people relate to him. Disney and Pixar images are designed to be vehicles for human feeling, but Eo is different. He is a loveable, live donkey and his apparent humanness creates a willingness in us to ponder and think about who we are. Eo causes us to attribute moral concerns that motivate us to like or dislike particular kinds of human activity. The issues the film raises are diverse and significant: they widely encompass cruelty to animals, climate change, high technology robotics, the decadence of the rich, human kindness and animal slaughter.
In this movie, bad and good happens to Eo, and he behaves in ways that deeply arouse human emotions. Eo experiences great kindness, and cruelty, and director Skolimowski seems to be asking, “what kind of person do we want to be?”. The power of the film lies in the magnitude of Eo’s reactions. Eo inspires strong love from his circus keeper, Kasandra (Drzymalska), yet highlights the absurdity of human behaviour in stepmother (Huppert), who has an incestuous relationship with her stepson (Zurzolo), a defrocked priest.
Eo’s insightful journey takes him across the country-side of Poland and Italy. On the way, he experiences the highs and lows of what society and humans can deliver: he is bought, sold, lost and found, and is severely injured. His experiences reflect widely different aspects of humanity, and the film manages to achieve its impact with minimal dialogue. Visual imagery drives the film’s plot and characterises the power of its messages. The film’s choreography is stunning.
In this film, the diverse nature of humanity lingers long after the final credits of the film have rolled. Viewers are made acutely aware of human and animal vulnerability. The film is a unique mix of imagery that confronts reality and the absurd.
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