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Jerzy Skolimowski's "EO," about a donkey wandering through modern Poland, is a rare animal picture that's not aimed at kids. In fact, small children, particularly ones conditioned by post-1950s Disney cartoons about lovable creatures, should not be allowed anywhere near it, because the movie doesn't stint on presentations of the cruelty and brutality that animals suffer in a world of humans, and that humans inflict on each other. This is not a case like " Babe " or the recent " Okja " where hard-edged presentations of human foibles and destructive actions alternate with heartwarming depictions of goodhearted folks trying their best to protect the creatures they love and respect. There are very few people in this film who even seem to notice animals—and when they do, it sometimes leads to the worst kind of attention. 

Like Robert Bresson's 1966 donkey-centric parable " Au Hasard Balthazar "— which provided the storytelling template for many other ambitious dramas such as " The Bear " and " War Horse " that focus on animals who are just animals, and don't talk or sing or otherwise attempt to entertain us—this one has the feeling of a pre-20th century fairy tale. The main goal is to create a fable that reminds the viewer of humans' connections to the natural world and serves up situations that have metaphorical dimensions beyond any physical actions that happen to be taking place at that moment.

The title character is grey with white flecks in his fur. We don't know his age or prior history. We first meet him in the opening credits sequence which, like so many parts of this film, is lit in expressionistic colors (red in this case) that verge on nightmarish or lurid. EO is in the center ring at a circus. His sweet and doting trainer Kasandra ( Sandra Drzymalska ) leads him through the tricks she's trained him to do. Then EO is separated from Kasandra when the circus is dismantled following a bankruptcy notice at the same time that animal rights activists are protesting the show for animal cruelty. 

And the odyssey begins. There are times when the framing of the tale suggests that we're watching a shaggier version of one of those family-friendly animal pictures where a heroic creature, usually a dog, is separated from its owner and travels hundreds of miles to reunite, surviving a series of mini-adventures through sheer ingenuity. That's not where Skolimowski and his co-writer  Ewa Piaskowska are taking us. This isn't even a picaresque narrative that puts EO at the center of every scene. Sometimes he's not onscreen and the movie shows us the geography of Poland and the way that humans and their buildings and roads and cars have claimed and in some cases disfigured it, while remaining largely indifferent to the natural world they've trampled and the animals they've tamed, displaced or destroyed. (A section featuring the great Isabelle Huppert could have been enlarged into its own movie; Huppert, like Marlon Brando before her, has otherworldly energy that makes it seem as if she sees more than we ever could.)

EO is small and typical—the kind of animal who seems beautiful after you get to know him, but who might not stand out in a stable full of donkeys. He could have been the model for the wisecracker in the " Shrek " movies. When Skolimowski and cinematographer Michal Dymek  photograph him in tight close-ups—sometimes so tight that the squarish, old-movie frame can barely contain the graceful line of EO's head in profile, one eye looming dead-center—you get a glimmer of what could possibly be wisdom. But that's just you the viewer projecting, in the way you might while visiting a farm or zoo. 

The filmmakers are resolute in keeping EO mysterious and letting him be an animal. We don't really know why he does or does not do things at any moment. Even when his trainer finds and briefly consoles him and then leaves him and he seems to go after her, there's no indication of what EO expects or hopes to achieve, much less his likelihood of success. He travels a ways and then stops, and more things happen.

But there's not always a discernible internal logic to the scenes and set pieces, and that can make parts of "EO" feel less like a coherent, if stripped-down, narrative than a highlight reel of clever cinematography techniques, including ostentatious acrobatic drone shots soaring high over the countryside, single-color filters (evocative of the final section of "2001: A Space Odyssey") and first-person "trick shots" where cameras have been attached to machines and other objects in motion. Some of these images are genuinely beautiful, eerie even. But others (including an early, brief sequence in a stable) veer towards fashion-magazine slick prettiness. And there are times when the film gets fixated on bold colors and striking angles (such as a very low-angled shot of a robot "dog" trundling through grass and across puddly dirt roads) to the detriment or neglect of EO. It's not enough to entirely derail the movie, but one might wish for a bit more aesthetic clarity from time to time.

One of the most upsetting sequences in the film finds EO chewing grass outside of a nightclub somewhere in the countryside when thugs with baseball bats pull up in cars, invade the club, beat and frighten the patrons, then barge back outside to drive away into the night. Somebody in one of the cars notices EO at the edge of the lot, and they all climb back out of the car and beat him, too, with the camera simulating EO's first-person perspective as the blows rain down on him. Why didn't EO run the second the cars pulled up and the men got out screaming with rage? This and other moments make it feel as if the potential for dramatic power overruled practical or logical considerations.

But such lapses are rare. For the most part, you feel as if you're in sure hands and can see what the storytellers are trying to do. It's as much an anthropological pseudo-documentary as it is a drama, one that sometimes evokes the Terrence Malick philosophy of " The Thin Red Line ," which began by insisting that humans are a part of nature and that when humans war with other humans, it is nature warring with itself. 

This is not the kind of movie that tries to convince viewers that animals are "just like us," even though quite a few scenes depict humans confirming that they, too, are animals, by intimidating and terrorizing individuals and groups in order to assert dominance or claim territory. At least EO escaped the circus. Humans built it and are the main attractions as well as the audience, and don't realize that they're running through the same routines, day after day. 

Now playing in select theaters. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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This brash film about a wandering donkey may just leave you in tears

John Powers

The donkey's eyes seem to take the measure of modern life in Jerzy Skolimowski's film, EO . Festival de Cannes hide caption

The donkey's eyes seem to take the measure of modern life in Jerzy Skolimowski's film, EO .

We all have things we don't like in movies. For some it's horror, for others bloodshed, for still others, nudity and sex. For my part, I've always found it excruciating to watch a film in which animals are shown being abused.

I was filled with dread at the prospect of seeing the new film EO , which is a riff on Robert Bresson's Au Hasard, Balthazar , a painful masterpiece in which a donkey is ground to dust by the world's inhumanity. But I knew I had to see it because it was made by one of my cinematic heroes, the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, who at age 84 is enjoying an astonishing late career resurgence. So I dragged myself off to a screening. And I'm glad I did. Far from being a cavalcade of misery, EO is a thrillingly imaginative piece of filmmaking: a strange, haunting epic about a donkey that couldn't feel more of our moment.

The donkey's name is EO, and as the action begins, EO is part of a small circus act with a loving young woman trainer. But when the circus goes broke, EO is sold off to farmers. They don't treat EO badly but the donkey remembers a happier, earlier life and soon escapes, beginning a journey across modern Europe that carries EO from forests and towns, to villas and scrap heaps the size of small Alps.

Now, normally a film like this would focus on the mean people who surround EO's wanderings. But the people here aren't all bad. Along the way, EO encounters all manner of human beings from the kind to the heartlessly brutal. Yet in a bold move, Skolimowski doesn't give precedence to the human side of things. He stays centered on his donkey hero, giving EO's existence an independence and worth equal to any of the humans we meet. We come to know the world from EO's point of view — the film's alien beauty suggests an animal's perceptions — and we share the donkey's emotions.

Skolimowski constantly shows us EO's dark eyes, which seem to take the measure of modern life. What they're witnessing and judging is our world with its rampant despoiling of nature, and in particular, its treatment of animals — from the looming wind turbines that slaughter birds in flight, to hunters with laser-guided rifles gunning down wolves, to the industrial food system that endlessly drives animals into the meatpacking plant. We spend the film fearing what may befall EO.

Now, a sense of the cosmos being out to get you has been present in Skolimowski's work since the beginning. Not surprisingly, perhaps, as his father was executed by the Nazis and he himself grew up in the repressiveness of Communist Poland. A man of many gifts — he's also been a boxer, a poet, a painter and an actor, even in Marvel Movies! — Skolimowski enjoyed a terrific run from the 1960s to the 1980s, making great movies like Barrier , Deep End and Moonlighting . Then in his mid-40s, he seemed to go cinematically fallow. What nobody could have guessed was that, in his eighth decade, he'd catch fire again, turning out films like Essential Killing and 11 Minutes that crackle with Young Punk audacity.

This panache is on display everywhere in EO , with its onrushing camera, color filters, aggressive music and utter confidence about throwing viewers into the donkey world where there's more poetry than plot and nobody explains what's going on. The film is so brash, freewheeling and inventive that, if I didn't know Skolimowski had made it, I'd have assumed it was the work of a brilliant 25 year old discovering what they — and the movies — can do.

Part of what makes EO feel so alive is that it speaks to today's huge, ongoing shift in consciousness about animals and our increasing awareness that we treat them horribly. This is a film filled with compassion for the exploited, ill-treated creatures of this world and electric with anger at those who, through malice or thoughtlessness, perpetuate cruelty toward the powerless.

Jean-Luc Godard famously said that Bresson's donkey film gave you "the world in an hour and a half." You can say the same of Skolimowski's revamped version, which may be another way of telling you that this is a movie that may leave you in tears.

Review: ‘EO,’ a gorgeous portrait of a donkey, is the movie you’ve been braying for

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In one of the most astonishing sequences in “EO,” a rapturous hymn to the natural world from the 84-year-old Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, a wandering donkey gets lost in a forest primeval. Night has fallen, but pools of moonlight illuminate this hushed, dark world in all its living glory. A little frog skims along the surface of a rushing stream. A skittering spider spins its web. An owl frowns down at the donkey from its treetop perch, as though registering an intruder’s presence. There are also a couple of howling wolves, a wary red fox and, in time, an array of green laser beams announcing the presence of nearby hunters, whose gunshots shatter the serenity of this woodland idyll.

The entire sequence tells much of the movie’s story in miniature. Again and again this donkey, known as EO (an approximation of the sound he makes), will experience a moment of freedom, only for a few human beings to come along and drag him back into harm’s way. If that risks making “EO” sound like a compendium of cruelty, rest assured that it isn’t, though it may speak to Skolimowski’s decades-long affinity for underdogs in movies like “Le Départ” (1967) and “Essential Killing” (2010). He knows that humans can be kind, but also that they can be abusive, with their often callous indifference to the rights and welfare of other creatures. The beauty that Skolimowski and the cinematographer Michal Dymek show us in “EO” — and shot for shot, this could be the year’s most breathtakingly beautiful movie — isn’t a denial of that cruelty, but a response to it.

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It begins with a screen-flooding burst of red light and a thunderous passage from Pawel Mykietyn’s orchestral score, which pulses and surges hypnotically throughout. In this early moment, EO is part of a circus act with a young performer, Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), who coos to him, caresses his coat and gives him carrot muffins to eat. Kasandra becomes the love of his life, the human he dreams about and longs for after they’re separated and he is shipped off to his next home. But that’s as far as Skolimowski goes in imputing motives or desires to EO, apart from the basic compulsions to eat, rest and roam. As the director seems to signal with regular closeups of EO’s enormous eyes — they’re somehow both inscrutable and soulfully expressive — there are limits to how much we can enter into, or even imagine, a donkey’s inner life.

Others, however, are happy to speak on his behalf: “Can’t you see this animal suffers?” an activist yells during a protest that will cause the circus to disband and send EO and his fellow four-legged performers running in all directions. The rest of this swift and relentless 86-minute movie (which Skolimowski scripted with his wife, Ewa Piaskowska) follows the donkey on a zig-zagging trek across Poland to Italy, over rolling hills and man-made bridges, through tunnels and past wind turbines and into that enchanted forest. At one point, in a shot so serendipitous it feels almost supernatural, a herd of galloping horses materializes alongside EO’s transport vehicle, their exhilarating freedom throwing his confinement into painful relief.

Along the way there are brief stops at a newly opened barn, where EO is sweetly nuzzled (but also frightened) by majestic horses, and a raucous sporting event where he becomes a grievously abused mascot for the winning team. From there he’s brought to a large facility where, by some whim of human mercy, he’s nursed back to health rather than put down. (Some of his neighbors aren’t so lucky.) From there he will ride along with a couple of drifters and eventually make his way to an Italian villa, where a countess played by none other than Isabelle Huppert breaks a few dishes and glares seductively at a hunky priest (Lorenzo Zurzolo). Huppert also becomes, I think, a kind of emblem of the larger European art-house cinema in whose domineering shadow this brilliant movie and its lowly, animalist (as opposed to lofty, humanist) concerns take root.

Which is not to suggest that “EO,” which shared the third-place jury prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has gone unnoticed or unrecognized, though it could easily get lost at the few American theaters where it will be shown, as it should be, on the big screen. When I first saw “EO” at Cannes, it was spoken of, sometimes dismissively, as more or less a contemporary remake of “Au Hasard Balthazar,” Robert Bresson’s 1966 masterpiece about the life, death and extraordinary beauty of a donkey much like this one. Both Balthazar and EO love and are loved by a human, and both are forced to become beasts of burden. Both also bear deadpan witness to all manner of human awfulness and absurdity.

Skolimowski, for his part, has acknowledged “Au Hasard Balthazar” as both an inspiration and a point of departure. While both films share a clear empathy for their protagonists, their visual and rhythmic differences are no less obvious. Bresson’s stately black-and-white compositions and gently flowing dissolves are a far cry from Agnieszka Glinska’s jagged edits and Dymek’s sweeping, vibrant-hued camerawork, especially those angry shocks of red. (The boldness of the imagery speaks to Skolimowski’s background as a painter.) And while Bresson folded an intricate human drama into the background of “Balthazar,” the humans in “EO” are interesting but comparatively interstitial figures. Their problems and sufferings — one weeps, another dies — concern us only to the degree that they impact EO.

EO himself is played by six donkeys — their names are Hola, Tako, Marietta, Ettore, Rocco and Mela — who are fused, through seamless shooting and editing, into a character we come to know and love. The intimacy of the camerawork — the loving close-quarters attention it showers on EO with his sometimes downcast, sometimes excited gaze, his perked-up ears, his soft gray fur and the scrumptious string of carrots that at one point adorns his neck — itself feels like an expression of that love. Skolimowski isn’t really trying to convey EO’s perspective, aside from a few shots that suggest a donkey’s-eye view, with their low-to-the-ground angles and blurred edges. He seems more interested in capturing a sense of what it means to be in EO’s presence, bringing you close enough that you feel you could talk to him, breathe in his scent and run your fingers through his fur.

In “EO,” the camera doesn’t just follow the story or record the action. Its restless, exploratory movements express a kind of shared consciousness, a spirit of communion among different members of the animal world, whether they’re running together in a field or sharing the same tight enclosure. It’s the grace of this movie to extend that communion to the human beings who pass in front of the camera, and whose fates are tightly bound up with EO’s, whether they realize it or not. And finally, that communion is extended to the audience, and especially to those of us who go to the movies to be jolted, moved and have our sense of the universe shaken up or gently realigned. The world we share with EO is cold and cruel, which doesn’t mean we have to be.

In Polish and Italian with English subtitles Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 2 at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, downtown Los Angeles

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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‘eo’: film review | cannes 2022.

Veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski ('Deep End') returns to the Croisette with his latest feature, which follows the turbulent adventures of a mule in Poland and Italy.

By Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer

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Does the cinema have room for two art-house donkey movies in its repertoire?

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Sandra Dryzmalska, Isabelle Huppert, Lorenzo Zurzulo, Mateusz Koscieukiewicz Director: Jerzy Skolimowski Screenwriters: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Paiskowska

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And yet, despite a shred of story that’s told episodically, EO , which clocks in at a concise 86 minutes, can be an engrossing experience. This is in a large part due to the stunning, immersive photography of Mychal Dymek (with additional footage by Pawel Edelman and Michal Englert), whose camera swoops up to the sky via drones to capture the shifting European landscapes, or gets up close and personal with our titular hero (or heroine?), using what’s best described as a subjective “donkey-cam.” If there are some movies that play better on a big screen in a dark theatre with the sound turned up, this is one of them.

Skolimowski has a long, diverse filmography ( Walkover , The Shout , Deep End , Moonlighting and many others) and has always dabbled in experimentation, but perhaps never quite so much as this time. Working with co-writer and producer Ewa Paiskowska, he eschews a conventional plot to make something that sits between fiction and non-fiction, nature documentary and avant-garde mood piece. If there’s any message behind EO , it’s that animals — donkeys especially — are still treated with plenty of brutality, whereas they are what manage to make our world such a beautiful place.

In that opening, Skolimowski seems to be underlining to what extent humans can never fully know what’s best for animals, even if they think they do. It’s a motif present throughout the film as EO is passed from one set of hands to another, all the while longing to be reunited with Kasandra. (This seems like a direct reference to the Bresson film, where Balthazar’s life was never better than when he was cared for at the beginning by the young Marie.)

The donkey’s existence has a few highs, such as when he’s transferred to a petting zoo and becomes the object of affection for a class of schoolchildren with mental disabilities, and lots of lows, like when he’s neglected on the farm in favor of all the stately groomed horses (one of whom serves as a fashion model) or nearly hunted down in the woods at night.

Both moods are combined in what’s perhaps the film’s longest vignette, when EO shows up at a regional Polish soccer game and winds up playing a hand in the local team’s victory. After, they bring him to a bar to celebrate, only to be attacked by hooligans from the other team who beat up not only all the fans and players, but EO as well.

It’s all very easy on the eyes, even if EO’s life is rarely easy and doesn’t come to an easy end. Without giving away the finale, let’s just say that it explores the quotidian savagery animals are still subjected to, in a scene reminiscent of similar ones in Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Andrea Arnold’s Cow , both of which played Cannes as well.

Before that ending happens, another Cannes regular appears in the form of Isabelle Huppert, who makes a brief cameo in a sequence that seems like it was ripped out of another movie — some sort of Franco-Italian family drama involving a villa, a countess and a priest — and tossed in here for the sake of it. It doesn’t really amount to much, but it reveals to what extent Skolimowski is willing to try out anything in this latest effort — the work of an 84-year-old filmmaker as independent as the beast he wants to set free.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Production companies: Skopia Film, Alien Films Cast: Sandra Dryzmalska, Isabelle Huppert, Lorenzo Zurzulo, Mateusz Koscieukiewicz Director: Jerzy Skolimowski Screenwriters, producers: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Paiskowska Executive producer: Jeremy Thomas Director of photography: Mychal Dymek Editor: Agnieszka Glinska Composer: Pawel Mykietyn Additional photography: Pawel Edelman, Michal Englert Sales: Hanway Films In Polish, Italian, English, French

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• A Donkey’s Inner Life Reveals Itself in Jerzy Skolimowsky’s Tender, Glorious <i>EO</i>

A Donkey’s Inner Life Reveals Itself in Jerzy Skolimowsky’s Tender, Glorious EO

L ike a mistreated starlet, nature often gets a bum deal in the movies. When the light is good, you can always just turn the camera on it and make a pretty picture. But it takes a great deal of care—your eyes need to learn to listen, perhaps, to all that’s in front of them—to capture its fierce, hushed awesomeness.

Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski does that, and more, in his intimate zephyr of a film EO, the story of a donkey who journeys from Poland to Italy, experiencing kindness and its stark opposite at the hands of humans, communing with the other animals and flora around him, sometimes even just picking up scents, and secrets, carried on the breeze. This is a sad story, but not a punishing one; it draws out a kind of joyful melancholy. Animal lovers—and Skolimowski himself is one—may find it difficult to watch at times. (I don’t recommend it for kids.) But this great and unpredictable filmmaker, now 84, takes great care with his donkey, and with our feelings. Any violence takes place off-screen, maybe not so much to soften the effect but out of respect for his main character and for us. The last thing Skolimowski and his cowriter, Ewa Piaskowska (also his wife), want to do is to throw us out of the movie and its delicate spell. There is no more beautiful-looking film this year; shot by Michal Dymek, it often looks lit from within, glowing as softly as a lantern. And even beyond that, EO may be one of the greatest movies ever made about the spirit of animals, as much as we can know it.

EO begins with dream images, a circus scene tinged with red. We catch glimpses of a woman in a satin costume, flashes of gray donkey fur, the orblike wonder of a large, unblinking eye. This donkey, EO —a name that echoes the sound he makes, a song built right in—has a job as a performer. He also has a costar who loves him, Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska). When they’re separated, it’s her gentle kindness that he’ll remember. Skolimowski shows this in tender flashbacks; if he’s anthropomorphizing, he’s also making a pretty good guess as to what might go on in an animal’s head.

Read more: Dead to Me Was a Love Story All Along

The circus goes bankrupt. All the animals are sold off. EO is carted off to a new home, which in some ways, save Kasandra’s absence, isn’t so bad: He now lives at what looks to be a large stable, somewhere in the Polish countryside. It’s a brand-new structure, and a few pretentious dignitaries are on hand to cut the ribbon. Eventually, the camera turns from them to EO standing watchfully nearby. There’s a regal circlet of carrots around his neck, ready for munching whenever he pleases. For now, he’s a guest of honor; later, he’ll be enlisted to pull a little cart, and that’s fine too. Until it isn’t. Unnerved by his proximity to two noisy horses being introduced for the first time, presumably for mating purposes, he knocks over a shelf full of trophies. Away he goes to his next home.

This one isn’t so bad, either, though he’s too depressed to accept the single fat carrot a well-meaning farm lady tries to offer him. (She has no idea how paltry her offering is, compared to his past 24-carrot adornment.) EO’s adventures eventually take him elsewhere: to a majestic night forest, half frightening, half glorious, where a fat spider spins a web from fairy thread and skinny foxes twitch in the moonlight. He finds his way to a small village, where he brays at a display of goldfish-filled aquariums in a shop window (who knows why?) and later becomes a hero for a local football team, who adopt him as a kind of mascot. But right after this, something terrible happens to him. There’s an intercession, a healing. Somehow he ends up in an Italian mansion—Isabelle Huppert is there in a chic-scary red-patterned velvet dress. Because, why not?

Read more: The 58 Most Anticipated Movies of 2022

This is the ebb and flow of EO: we both watch him and see the world through his eyes. Running with his cart, his legs moving like little machines, his ears pointing to the sky, he’s a marvel of determination and efficiency. His fur has a pleasing, soft-rough texture—you can feel it without even touching. His eyes, proportionally enormous, both hold and reflect all his thoughts and dreams and memories—or maybe they’re just reflectors of our own? bThe point is that he becomes our twin. What happens to him happens to us.

EO won the Jury Prize at Cannes last spring; when Skolimowski took the stage to accept, he thanked all six of the donkeys who played EO by name. In the months since I first saw this film, many of the people I’ve talked to about it have nodded and said knowingly, “Ah, like Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar .” Well, yeah—and no. Skolimowski has spoken of his love for that film, and how much it moved him, and how it’s certainly an influence on EO. But even if Skolimowski’s donkey sometimes suffers, the movie is hardly about his suffering. Skolimowski’s approach is mildly experimental, but in the end direct. His movie is about, maybe, all the reasons we love animals, all the reasons we can’t explain. We look at them and see a soul there—no scientist can yet prove its absence—and it helps us locate our own. Sometimes it’s easier to believe in animals than it is to believe in God. And much easier to believe in them than in ourselves.

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‘EO’ Review: ‘Au Hasard Balthazar’ Homage Is a Case of Been There, Donkey That

Polish film legend Jerzy Skolimowski offers his take on Robert Bresson's classic, using a donkey to indict human mistreatment of animals and nature.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Give an animal a name, and it becomes a lot more difficult to send it to the glue factory. But people don’t stop using paste simply because they’ve made an equine friend. Named for the animal it follows from owner to owner, through various hardships and across national borders, “ EO ” is a damning polemic on our relationship to other intelligent species — as free labor, food and companions — as seen through the dewy, wide eyes of a donkey whom we come to adore.

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While “EO” is not a direct remake, it’s certainly more than homage. Bresson’s film was, among other things, a rejection of on-screen sentimentality. Five minutes in, the child who gave Balthazar his name dies, after which, the donkey repeatedly changes owners, an anonymous possession to whom only the audience (as opposed to the characters) seemed particularly attached. That same dynamic is true here, to a degree, except that Skolimowski romanticizes and partly anthropomorphizes the beast, giving him subjective shots and flashbacks, perhaps even dream sequences. (How else to explain the striking red filters and free-floating drone footage?)

Unlike Bresson’s film, which begins at birth, the donkey is full-grown at the outset and already has a name, EO, flashed on screen amid the strobe lights of a traveling circus performance. EO is well looked after here — and downright adored by Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), the Polish dancer who performs alongside him in the ring. She caresses his mane and plants kisses in his beard, feeding him carrot muffins on special occasions. What more to life is there than this?

Then a crowd of animal rights protesters appears, accusing the circus of “torture,” and demanding that it immediately cease using live animals. EO is carted away, the protesters thinking themselves victorious — but little do they realize that his life will be downhill from here. (As it happens, the same thing is happening in France today. Activists have demanded that certain wild animals no longer be used in film and TV shoots, so the trainers are obliged to put them down, as they can no longer afford to care for the creatures.)

This logistical complication bears mentioning since Skolimowski and company clearly made the film with live donkeys — six of them, to be precise — and while the crew took great care to respect the animals, one day such a movie may not be permitted at all. For now, no convincing equivalent for real animals exists, and movies with virtual substitutes feel increasingly like live-action cartoons. Of course, there’s good reason for on-set safety guidelines, as a movie like “The Adventures of Milo & Otis” made clear. Twenty kittens were reportedly killed during that film, and another was dropped over a cliff to get a shot.

Meanwhile, this movie wouldn’t be the same if EO were CG, and part of its magic (for the film is effective, even if it was made with a heavy hoof) comes from the way we project human emotions on its largely silent protagonist. Skolimowski uses other tricks to communicate the mood, such as Paweł Mykietyn’s unambiguous electronic score and a dizzying array of trick shots, some from EO’s point of view. In one deliberately ironic scene, the donkey gazes out the window to see a herd of wild horses running free. Is that envy we’re meant to see on his face?

Writing for Cahiers du Cinéma, Jean-Luc Godard famously described “Au Hasard Balthazar” as giving audiences “the world in an hour and a half,” and though Skolimowski rejects so many of Bresson’s artistic conceits (starting with the way he wants a donkey that acts, rather than an ambivalent beast), he shares that goal. Both directors use the animal to comment on human nature, though Skolimowski is more didactic, including shots of deforestation and a massive manmade dam, whereas Bresson invited a certain ambiguity. Here, characters are instantly forgotten, their stories abandoned. One quite shockingly has his throat slit without explanation. Through it all, EO remembers only his circus friend.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Competition), May 19, 2020. Running time: 88 MIN. (Original title: “Hi-han”)

• Production: (Poland-Italy) A Skopia Film, Jeremy Thomas presentation of a Skopia Film production, in co-production with Alien Films, Polwell, Moderator Inwestycje, Veilo Ewa Żyłka, Warmia-Masuria Film Fund, Podkarpackie Regional Film Fund, Strefa Kultury Wroclaw, Ares 2002, Polish Film Institute, MIC, Regione Lazio. (World sales: HanWay Films, London.) Producers: Ewa Piaskowska, Jerzy Skolimowski. Executive producer: Jeremy Thomas. Co-producer: Eileen Muriel Tasca.
• Crew: Director: Jerzy Skolimowki. Screenplay: Ewa Piaskowska, Jerzy Skolimowski. Camera: Michał Dymek. Editor: Agnieszka Glińska. Music: Paweł Mykietyn.
• With: Sandra Drzymalska, Lorenzo Zurzolo, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, Isabelle Huppert.

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An extremely difficult film to watch at times but one that packs one hell of a punch with its message. Be prepared you will cry but the journey is worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 16, 2023

Eo is a very special treat for anyone who really cares about how personal, idiosyncratic and unexpected a visit to the cinema can still be.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 8, 2023

[Uses] a fresh, empathetic approach that, even in its obvious dramatic liberties, makes us meditate on both the depth of experience that may be unfolding in our animal neighbors and our role in shaping it.

Full Review | Sep 23, 2023

The result is disconcerting, lysergic, surreal, but in several passages fascinating. A genuine beast. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 22, 2023

EO occupies a rare liminal space between bitter realism and stark surrealism, becoming a truly daring, dynamic project that repeatedly folds onto itself, manifesting as a completely different type of work as it continues.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2023

The love for Au Hasard Balthazar has paved the way for Skolimowski to craft EO, but that same adoration makes it falter.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 29, 2023

Like a poem, both EO the movie and EO the donkey have their own ineffable language.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

EO is a stark and oftentimes angry look at humanity’s impact on the natural world. More than the human characters’ treatment of EO, it’s the film’s duality of man-made spaces vs. the open grasslands of nature.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

The effect is otherworldly, as is the entirety of this haunting and touching film as it peers at life so often ignored, undervalued and exploited on this very earth.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2023

A travelogue starring a donkey who experiences the good, the bad, and the beautiful in our world

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 28, 2023

EO is an understated stunner... an outside-the-square gem that sends us on a singularly captivating odyssey with visionary images and perceptive direction, a prime example of the type of non-mainstream film that gives arthouse cinema a good name.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 16, 2023

Mychal Dymek’s superb cinematography lends distinction to the film and, combined with the director’s strikingly original visual concepts, including some scenes representing the donkey’s eye view, makes for a visually impressive experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 15, 2023

Animal adventure as psychedelic dream, EO is that rarest of things: a narrative film that actively decentres the human perspective in pursuit of a new way of seeing.

Full Review | Apr 13, 2023

This portrait of an animal encountering the best and the worst the world of men can offer, is a beautiful, haunting and special experience

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 12, 2023

If you watched The Banshees of Inisherin and, like most of the world, fell in love with Jenny the donkey and went on an emotional journey with her, well this is your next fix of beautiful trauma.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2023

EO is a categorically complete and complex film. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 7, 2023

Skolimowski implies it’s the fate of animals to be misunderstood, to be brutalised by some and patronised by others.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2023

The film, by Polish master Jerzy Skolimowski, is both moving and puzzling, a story about an innocent done in a style that doesn’t always have the same innocence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 6, 2023

a deeply moving, beautifully wrought, and keenly reflective film that finds new avenues of dramatization of, and insight into, all the good and bad that humanity has to offer

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 27, 2023

... an ode to nature that's often hauntingly beautiful & diaphanous, leading us to contemplate how easily we disconnect from beings who, if not ensouled, are alive and worthy of kindness and dignity

Full Review | Original Score: 17/20 | Mar 22, 2023

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EO film review — vivid meditation on power through the eyes of a donkey

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Wondrous donkey adventure EO decentres the human perspective in pursuit of a new way of seeing

Animal adventure as psychedelic dream, Oscar-nominated donkey tale EO is that rarest of things: a narrative film that actively decentres the human perspective in pursuit of a new way of seeing.

The eponymous star of Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski's other-worldly feature is a plaintive grey donkey whose deep, dark eyes might be read as either windows to the abyss or a reflection of the world in all of its wonder – sometimes both — as he wanders across a vision of Europe populated by farmers, football fans and French countesses, adrift on the tide of fate.

His journey begins in a Polish circus, where his only friend is a young showgirl, Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), with whom he shares a gentle, almost psychic bond, depicted in a tender, red-lit tableau set to Paweł Mykietyn's baroque orchestral score.

Liberated from the circus after protests by animal activists, EO embarks on a picaresque adventure that's variously wondrous, mystifying, and sometimes traumatic.

His trek takes him from a horse stable and a seemingly friendly farm to a rowdy soccer match, a perilous encounter with meat traders, and even to the Italian enclave of a countess, played by no less than screen doyenne Isabelle Huppert.

Though the film's obvious precedent is Robert Bresson's revered 1966 classic Au Hasard Balthazar, Skolimowski's version of the donkey odyssey is less a remake of that heavyweight text than its jazzy counterpart, a galaxy-brain take on the Frenchman's Christian parable that hoofs its way beyond morality and into altogether uncharted, agnostic terrain.

The film collapses arbitrary boundaries between nature and technology, imagining a world in which all creatures — donkeys, robotic dogs, Isabelle Huppert — are imbued with an equivalent degree of consciousness.

In the film's dazzling centrepiece, EO wanders into a forest glade that's like Bambi by way of Twin Peaks, an astral traveller amid the frogs, spiders, owls and wolves.

Skolimowski and his cinematographer, Michał Dymek, strobe the woods with emerald green lasers, beamed out from the gun sights of hunters but looking for all the world like an invitation to a pagan rave.

As EO passes through a bat-infested tunnel and, apparently, into another dimension, the camera spins 360 degrees to lashings of metal guitar, the image all dark silhouettes etched against iridescent lighting.

Later, the camera, low to the ground, rides shotgun with a Boston Dynamics robot dog, a random passer-by that's afforded a miraculous sequence: quizzically regarding its own reflection in the light of a street lamp, rolling in the grass like a terrier, its little metallic paw extended toward the moon.

In these and other sequences, Skolimowski evokes an animistic world where even flashing police lights, a junkyard wrecking crane, or a soccer ball, appears possessed of a soul, where humans are simply another life form sharing this plane of existence.

It's a remarkably radical work from the 84-year-old veteran, though not inconsistent with his stridently avant-garde career.

From his early work in the Polish new wave through his films made in exile (the eerie, psychosexual, coming-of-age drama Deep End) and his recent experiments (minimalist chase thriller Essential Killing, the time-bending 11 Minutes), Skolimowski has always had a knack for conjuring the unusual.

The director's haunting 1978 film The Shout saw him tap into the transformative power of sound, summoning a primal, magical force from beyond the frame.

In EO, even the camera is detached from humanity, adopting the perspective of animals and machines, or swooping across a forest like a disembodied entity — the kind of formal daring conjured by another visionary, post-human work: Sandra Wollner's The Trouble With Being Born.

The film is not so much about seeing the world through EO's eyes (though there are plenty of distorted-lens moments of donkey vision), nor does it set out to humanise him or the film's other non-human characters — to give them humanity would be patronising — and sentiment is in short supply here.

The film's humans aren't even especially cruel or evil, although they sometimes can be insensitive and boorish. Rather, they're just as clueless as everything else, pawns in the ebb and flow of the universe.

The film doesn't moralise or pass judgement. Things simply are.

Even when EO, tagging along with a herd of cattle bound for the slaughterhouse, unknowingly heads toward what appears to be his ultimate exit, the moment seems less a grand statement about the preciousness of all life than an acknowledgement of the matter-of-factness of existence, the routine churn of fate.

Somewhere — maybe in that spooky, spectral forest glade — life goes on.

EO is in cinemas now.

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Soulful and mysterious, this donkey odyssey is an unforgettable experience

Time Out says

Okay, hands up: who had a donkey on their bingo card as the breakout movie star of 2023 ? The little mule at the centre of this intensely life-enriching, gloriously shot, sometimes acid-trippy parable about the tumultuous life of one beast of burden in modern-day Europe proves that you don’t need words to be captivating on screen. 

Like Winnie the Pooh’s doleful pal, Eeyore, EO’s name is taken from the braying noise he sometimes uses to alert the world to moments of mild displeasure. It’s a rare sound – this is a pretty chilled donkey – although his unfortunate tendency to make a dash for it when no one is looking cascades him from one uncertain episode to the next. The film begins in a Polish circus and takes in long-haul truck journeys, treks through fairy-tale forests, and stints on farms and horse racing stables. The latter comes to an abrupt end when he inadvertently knocks over, well, everything in his stable. Like all silent film stars worth their salt-lick, EO is a master of slapstick. 

But Polish arthouse veteran Jerzy Skolimowski, who has scratched out such dark depictions of the human soul as 1970’s psychosexual shocker Deep End , hasn’t lost his edge down the years. He directs with endless compassion but zero sentimentality, reflecting the ugliness of the world through the imponderable eyes of this little donkey. Amid the widescreen European landscapes come vivid jolts of violence: pissed-up football thugs bearing crowbars and a sudden, heartstopping murder. EO is marooned somewhere between a natural world full of wonder and the basest instincts of humankind. 

The shifts in location and mood are powered by Paweł Mykietyn‘s stirring score (with the odd blast of Beethoven when things get hairy) and framed with eloquent compositions. In one of them, EO is backdropped by charging stallions, like a battered Mini overtaken by a clutch of Ferraris, and it creates a brief moment that’s alive with communion, solidarity and sadness.

In a cruel irony, it’s animal rights activists who initially separate him from his doting circus trainer (Sandra Drzymalska). She’s the one person who genuinely cares for his welfare (and has a ready supply of his favourite carrot muffins) – at least, until he encounters a young lapsed priest and finds himself at his mother’s Italian villa. Isabelle Huppert cameos as the regally despairing mum, who upbraids her dissolute offspring for his gambling addiction, while EO munches serenely on her manicured lawns.

Even  Isabelle Huppert can’t pull focus from this little inscrutable donkey 

That domestic drama, a nod perhaps to the melancholy spiritualism of Robert Bresson’s great donkey flick Au Hasard Balthazar, briefly shuts out EO from his own story. But even La Huppert can’t pull focus from this little inscrutable donkey for long, as he continues his journey into the unknown. 

The effect is eerie, profound and emotional. As a mirror back onto humanity’s foibles and criminal excesses, EO is the perfect heir to Bresson’s long-suffering Balthazar. And while Skolimowski never beats this drum too hard, his big-eared star’s odyssey shows humanity to be just as capable of casual brutality and callous indifference as ever. You worry for this little mule, but ultimately you worry for us even more. 

In UK cinemas Feb 3

Cast and crew

• Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
• Screenwriter: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piaskowska
• Sandra Drzymalska
• Isabelle Huppert
• Lorenzo Zurzolo
• Mateusz Kosciukiewicz

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‘EO’ Review: Polish Legend Jerzy Skolimowski Returns with Madcap Bresson Remake

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Cannes  Film Festival. Sideshow releases the film in select theaters on Friday, November 18.

One of many good things to be said about “ EO ,” surely the wackiest movie in competition at Cannes this year, is that you would have no idea it was made by an 84-year-old filmmaker in only his fourth movie since the fall of the Soviet Union. A master of the aesthetically liberated New Polish Cinema — fellow alum include Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, and Krzysztof Zanussi —  Jerzy Skolimowski last won plaudits on the Croisette in the late ’70s and early ’80s for a string of British-made dramas starring the likes of John Hurt and Jeremy Irons. Horror film “The Shout,” with Alan Bates, took the Grand Prix jury prize in 1978. “Moonlighting,” in 1982, won best screenplay here. New York Times critic Vincent Canby called it “one of the best films ever made about exile.”

“EO” is not like any of those, even if it does have something to say about exile.

Told through the eyes of a modest donkey — often literally — Skolimowski’s madcap, visually experimental “remake” of Robert Bresson’s 1966 black-and-white drama “Au Hasard Balthazar” has plenty of nods to his compatriot classmates and little to do with Skolimowski’s previous films. The titular donkey, onomatopoeically named (it is “Hi-Han” in France), is freed from a circus in central Poland and briefly becomes a hardcore “ultra” fan at a local soccer team, before being whisked away for more adventures, taking in the vastness of life along the way. Eo even meets Isabelle Huppert, a privilege any living being can look back on their years proudly for. (In Cannes’s answer to a Marvel cameo, the gasp Huppert’s appearance produced at last night’s press screening is one for the ages.)

The fact that Eo has no control over his destiny — our narrator, remember, is a literal donkey — makes for a somewhat anarchic viewing experience. There aren’t a series of human conversations to grab on to. There is seemingly no plot. In Bresson’s version, it’s the humans around the donkey who are the true center of the story. Not so in “EO.”This is Donkeyvision, and we’re better off for it.

Still, there are some welcome glimpses at the formative and underrated era in Polish cinema which produced Skolimowski et al. Local officials cutting a ribbon at a new farm warehouse are inept and inane, much like the Communist leaders of Kieślowski and Andrzej Wajda’s films. One image that sticks out is of a priest blessing the new facility. To say that many Polish films about the not-so-glorious opening of a new factory featured the same trope would be an understatement. Communism in Poland may be gone, but the country’s caustic wit, and the New Polish Cinema’s distrust of an all-seeing Catholic Church, remain.

That’s not to say “EO” is much of a throwback, though, and the extent to which it isn’t  one is refreshing. There are some audacious visual tricks, notably the truly insane portrayal of Eo’s dreams — yes — and the donkey’s experience of circus performing, with drone footage to make Michael Bay jealous. The Łódź Film School tradition which Skolimowski was educated is known above all else for its innovations in photography. If the Italian Neo-Realists are documentarians and Britain’s kitchen sink filmmakers were social activists, those who came through Łódź with Skolimowski are technicians. “EO” shows that his skill, here, has not aged a day. (The fact Skolimowski has co-written the new Polanski, however, very much has.)

Clocking in at less than 90 minutes — other Competition titles so far have been more than a tad longer — “EO” is probably too slight and eccentric to be a Palme contender. That’s a shame, as it’s unlike anything else in the Cannes lineup.

Most likely, it found its place in Competition this year out of affinity for Skolimowski’s earlier work, and its relation to Bresson. Nevermind that they have entirely different ideological perspectives: Bresson’s is an almost spiritual tribute to the very nature of victimhood, with shades of Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot.” Like much of the French New Wave icon’s work, each and every shot is placed with intention. “EO,” however, is more interested in telling a meandering tale about a donkey traipsing through contemporary Europe, in all its strangeness and savagery.

The most fleshed out human role is Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), Eo’s circus performer companion. It’s through her eyes that we see the sheer beauty of the animal — not everyone sees Eo this way — in a similar fashion that we perceive the beauty of Eve the cow in “First Cow” through the eyes of Cookie. After that, however, the human gaze takes a backseat.

Ingmar Bergman said after watching Bresson’s film: “A donkey, to me, is completely uninteresting, but a human being is always interesting.” By focusing almost entirely on his donkey, Skolimowski takes the unenviable task of challenging Bergman head-on — and, it seems, proves him wrong.

“EO” premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. 

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"EO" is the gorgeously hypnotic drama about a donkey whose journey will break your heart

Cannes film festival jury prize winner and poland's official oscar entry, "eo" reflects our own humanity, by gary m. kramer.

Gorgeously filmed, experimental in style, and incredibly humanistic, "EO," recounts the experiences of the titular donkey — frequently from the animal's point of view. The film is Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski's (" Four Nights With Anna ") homage to Robert Bresson 's "Au Hasard Balthazar," and it arrives with bona fides, having won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and is Poland's selection as their official Oscar entry for Best International Film. 

EO is first seen under a red strobe light with surging music. He is a circus animal who is cared for by Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska) who is part of the Cyrk Orion. She feeds EO and gives him affection, and the donkey is wonderfully expressive even as the camera follows him trotting along. But protesters against animal abuse in the circus cause EO to be "repossessed" and taken from Kasandra. Viewers can see the sadness in his eyes. 

The film then shows all the different experiences EO has on his own as he moves through the Polish countryside. The story is, of course, a metaphor with EO as the innocent who encounters all kinds of people. One could liken the animal to an immigrant who is forced to work — EO is seen hitched to a cart in his early scenes — or a symbol for Poland and how people in the country treat him, kindly and cruelly. There are children who pet him and ride him and others who exploit him. In one adorable moment, he munches on a carrot tied around his neck. There are folks who are gentle, such as Kasandra, who locates him in one charming scene and feeds him a muffin for his birthday. His braying when she leaves him is heartbreaking. 

There are many striking scenes of EO on his own. He watches horses run free from the captivity of a trailer. One marvelous sequence has EO out in nature at night, and he sees frogs in the water, a spider in its web, an owl on a tree branch, a howling wolf and a racoon scurrying before lasers and gunshots spoil nature's tranquility. There is also a fabulous drone shot through a forest and along a river that is scored to Pawel Mykietyn's sonorous music. Even a tracking shot of EO trotting through a lighted tunnel is mesmerizing. (Michal Dymek did the exquisite cinematography.) And a breathtaking landscape is shrewdly seen in widescreen at first but later from between the slats that are penning EO in on a truck. (Freedom/captivity is a strong theme here.)

But as the film progresses, it has EO interacting with people. When he is near a soccer pitch, EO has an impact on a game during a penalty kick. He is taken to the afterparty by the winning team, and has smoke blown in his face. He is a passive participant as windows are broken but EO is beaten by hooligans. There are questions raised about his suffering as he is passed around and EO ends up on a farm where foxes are killed for their fur. His actions there include kicking a violent man, which should make audiences cheer. 

"EO" does abruptly shift its storylines, which can be disconcerting, and his character can be in the background for some of the drama. One of the more interesting sequences has EO being transported by Mateo (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) a trucker. EO is not in the frame when Mateo cleans himself up in a rest stop washroom or offers to help someone, nor does the animal see the shocking act of violence that occurs as this scene unfolds, but the film suggests EO senses it. (Viewers will feel it too.) 

Likewise, when a young man, Vito (Lorenzo Zurzolo) encounters EO, he wonders if he is saving the donkey or stealing him. As he returns home to his Italian villa, he has a tense exchange with The Countess ( Isabelle Huppert ) that involves her breaking plates and tossing handfuls of silverware around in a scene full of drama. Again, it seems a bit far afield from EO's story, but it is fascinating, and Huppert is dazzling in her cameo. 

One sequence, around the film's midpoint, features a robotic animal , which perhaps only emphasizes the beauty of EO, a real one, but an earlier scene of a horse being tenderly washed and groomed while EO watches, jealously, conveys his alienation more effectively. 

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Such is the film's narrative logic, and perhaps it is best to just let the film wash across the screen, not unlike a hypnotic series of slow-motion scenes of water near the film's end. Viewers can make connections or interpret people, or actions, or emotions as desired. EO is not going to judge, but he is going to tell you what to think or feel, which is perhaps the beauty and brilliance of this uncommon film.

"EO" opens in New York City Nov. 18 with a platform release to follow.

movie reviews by Gary Kramer

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Gary M. Kramer is a writer and film critic based in Philadelphia. Follow him on Twitter .

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Follows a donkey who encounters on his journeys good and bad people, experiences joy and pain, exploring a vision of modern Europe through his eyes. Follows a donkey who encounters on his journeys good and bad people, experiences joy and pain, exploring a vision of modern Europe through his eyes. Follows a donkey who encounters on his journeys good and bad people, experiences joy and pain, exploring a vision of modern Europe through his eyes.

• Jerzy Skolimowski
• Ewa Piaskowska
• 79 User reviews
• 139 Critic reviews
• 85 Metascore
• 31 wins & 65 nominations total

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• The Countess

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• Trivia Director Jerzy Skolimowski has said that the only time he ever cried while watching a movie was with Au hasard Balthazar (1966) , which is about a mistreated donkey. The story heavily influenced EO (2022) .
• Goofs When Kasandra gets off the motorbike, she hangs her helmet over the right rear-view mirror of the bike. Later, when Dude puts his helmet back on, Kasandra's helmet is still hanging there, but after the next cut, when Dude gets on the motorbike and starts the engine, Kasandra's helmet is now hanging over the left rear-view mirror. In the next scene, when Dude drives away, Kasandra's helmet is gone, but later, when she runs after him and gets on the motorbike, he hands her helmet to the back.
• Connections Featured in The Oscars (2023)
• Soundtracks 2nd Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Written by Pawel Mykietyn Performed by Marcel Markowski

User reviews 79

• Dec 28, 2022
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• January 21, 2023 (United States)
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• Jezioro Bystrzyckie, Dolnoslaskie, Poland (Eo in front of the dam)
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• Nov 20, 2022

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• Runtime 1 hour 28 minutes

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Home » Movie Reviews » EO Movie Review: Good Donkey and Good Movie

EO Movie Review: Good Donkey and Good Movie

Eo is directed by jerzy skolimowski and stars sandra drzymalska and isabelle huppert.

Movie Review: EO may be too light on action for some, but deep below this story about a donkey traveling the lands of Poland and modern Europe lies truths about human impact on our planet. It may not be the easiest film to connect with sitting on your couch, but its final moments will surely land a punishing hit.

The Oscar for most heartwarmingly sweet animal in a motion picture goes to: EO . The donkey that carries Jerzy Skolimowski’s newest ode to Earthly charm and nature’s beauty. EO is up for best international feature at the 2023 Oscars, and it’s not particularly shocking to see why. The Academy seems more interested than ever in rewarding meditative, deeply insular and quiet dramas, especially in the international features race. Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World seemed to open the floodgates to this style of filmmaking in awards shows, and it’s not surprising to see EO follow in their footsteps.

I think I admire and respect EO a bit more than I actually like EO . It’s extremely sentimental and loving about the world that humans inhabit and the animals that we live with day-to-day. Perhaps the most effective moments of EO are when you witness humans eliminating habitats shaping the world to best suite ourselves. The movie has an innate love for Earth’s beauty and nature, and the most soul-crushing moments are when people afflict damage on that natural beauty.

I’m not too familiar with past works by Jerzy Skolimowski , but my intrigue is heightened after seeing EO . This feels like the work of a director decades into his/her career and choosing to venture off to do their own passion project. And maybe that’s the best way to put Skolimowski’s latest film: a passion project, passionate about putting man’s acts on trial during a subliminal and nuanced story of a donkey wandering through life.

EO is certainly going to be a confusing movie for some. It’s told wholeheartedly through the eyes of its titular donkey. The world is a confusing place for the animals that don’t construct the infrastructure they live in or the paths they walk on. Skolimowski’s greatest feat here is that he reinvents the world through a new set of eyes in an attempt to disorient the viewer. And it works. EO works strictly on the senses, and it relies on you being able to stay locked in and emotionally connect for the full ride.

I watched EO at home. The movie recently hit The Criterion Channel and it was one of the few 2022 releases I still hadn’t had the opportunity to check out. I imagine EO plays differently when you’re in the theater and you’re able to lock in with the innocent donkey during the entire ride. I didn’t have that luxury, and in turn I had a bit of a rough time staying focused on nature’s beauty during this film. That doesn’t mean it’s entirely boring or uninteresting, but sometimes the way you consume a piece of art greatly impacts how it resonates with you.

The movie weaves between small vignettes during EO ’s travels, and the characters you think you might see for the duration of the movie quickly leave and are never seen from again. EO wanders between good situations and bad ones – characters that seem interested in helping the poor animal, and ones that carelessly harm him. As I’ve mentioned, EO genuinely loves the world, and therefore hates human destruction and indecency.

Reviews for Movies like EO (2022)

There’s a nihilistic blanket over EO that I found quite engaging and interesting. It’s as if the Skolimowski didn’t block or write any of EO and chose instead to follow the donkey and see who’s path he may cross. Even if Skolimowski did sit down and write a script for EO , it couldn’t have been a long one. There are long stretches of this movie that contain no dialogue or human characters at all. EO doesn’t need companionship. He wants to be left alone.

And then the final moments hit and the message becomes much clearer and heartbreaking. If you’re not vegan before this movie, you might be after it. There are noticeable hints of Bong Joon-ho littered throughout EO , but none more obvious than its nods to Okja during the third act. I thought the movie was powerfully direct but needlessly light up until those final moments. Then it all switched up and became much more potent.

I liked EO , but I’m not sure I could completely wrap my arms around it from the confines of my own living room. It has a tender and humane story that culminates in a jarring finale, but I wouldn’t say I’m dying to revisit it. Not everything is about rewatchability, but my first reaction to EO wasn’t visceral enough to overcome the timeless factor of it. Good boy.

Genre: Drama

EO is available to stream on The Criterion Channel

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EO Movie Cast and Credits

Sandra Drzymalska as Kasandra

Isabelle Huppert as The Countess

Lorenzo Zurzolo as Vito

Mateusz Kościukiewicz  as Mateo

Tomasz Organek  as Ziom

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski

Writers: Jerzy Skolimowski ,  Ewa Piaskowska

Cinematography: Michal Dymek

Editor: Agnieszka Glińska

Composer: Paweł Mykietyn

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Jerzy Skolimowski has never been the conventional sort. Having made his name as part of the Polish New Wave scene in the 1960s, he directed some arresting British dramas in the 1970s and ’80s, and in 2010 cast Vincent Gallo as, somehow, a Taliban fighter in survivalist thriller Essential Killing . Meanwhile, he’s dabbled in acting — one of his last gigs had him being headbutted by Scarlett Johansson ’s Black Widow in 2012’s Avengers Assemble . He is predictably unpredictable, so it makes sense that his latest film is a trippy, 86-minute odyssey following a donkey across Poland. EO is very loosely inspired by Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar , but concept aside, this is maximum Skolimowski. And maximum donkey.

Co-written with his wife Ewa Piaskowska, it introduces us to the gentle, docile EO (played by six donkey actors), whose road trip begins after a circus goes bust. This means he is separated from Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), the human circus-worker who adores him, and as he travels the land, his fortunes fluctuate. If this sounds like a cuddly Pixar film — well, no. Skolimowski is not one to shy away from harsh realities, and here we have random acts of violence. People die. Someone’s neck is sliced open. Animals are killed. And if you can’t stomach seeing a donkey having the shit kicked out of him from his POV, then this might not be the film for you.

In EO , life is beautiful, and majestic, and horrific and awful.

There’s a lot going on here. As well as such harshness, there’s mischievous humour, some of it deadpan, some of it slapstick, some of it involving a plate-smashing Isabelle Huppert (in the film’s oddest, most jarring sequence). Much of it is plain beautiful, Skolimowski in thrall to the natural world — and to his donkey. Cinematographer Michal Dymek provides tranquil, tender close-ups of EO, as well as some rather operatic imagery. A drone camera, presumably, swoops through a red-filtered forest. A Steadicam follows EO through a tunnel as he is besieged by bats. River-water is filmed like fractals. A dead bird, fallen from the sky, splats on a woodland floor. The awesome horror of life.

Accompanying all of this is Pawel Mykietyn’s score, treating EO profoundly, reverentially, epically. Terrifying strings soundtrack someone eating pasta. A garden gate opens and it feels like The Shining . Heavy metal segues into Beethoven. And sometimes, the music seems to lean into EO’s own state of mind. Skolimowski is not afraid to suggest that EO has emotions much as we do, giving him dream sequences, or at least memories of happier times with Kasandra. There is a spiritual quality to EO, and it’s strange and touching.

EO is dwarfed by the natural world, and by people. It feels like Skolimowski, aged 84, has had it with humans. Certainly those who aren’t nice to animals. In EO , life is beautiful, and majestic, and horrific and awful. Shit goes down, just because. On we go. Until we die.

Take a Delightfully Strange Road Trip with a Donkey in ‘EO,’ a Fantasia of the Animal and Human World

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It takes chutzpah to remake a masterwork and ingenuity to rival one, and that’s just what the octogenarian director Jerzy Skolimowski accomplishes in his new film, “EO” (opening Nov. 18), an updating of Robert Bresson’s classic 1966 drama, “Au Hasard Balthazar.” The protagonist of “EO” is, like Balthazar, a donkey; the onomatopoeic title (think hee-haw ) is also the donkey’s name. Where Bresson’s saintly animal lays bare the latent evil of a rural French village, Skolimowski’s donkey is a creature of many moods, whose wide-ranging adventures through Poland and Italy, in modest circumstances and high society alike, give rise to a panorama of human malice, misery, empathy, and indifference. EO (of unspecified gender, and played by six different donkeys) is endowed with a soulful gaze, a keen sense of humor, an independent spirit, and an elephant’s memory. Whether on display at a circus where EO performs, at a lavish villa where EO is neglected, in a small town where EO is caught in local rivalries, or at various way stations of industrialized cruelty, EO’s personality shines thanks to Skolimowski’s daringly imaginative depictions, both visual and emotional, of the donkey’s point of view. (Nov. 11.)

‘The Exorcism’ Review: The Power of Crowe Compels You

Russell Crowe gives his best performance in years as an actor overwhelmed by inner and outer demons

Joshua John Miller’s “The Exorcism” is not a funny movie. If anything, it’s deeply disturbing. But there’s a pretty good joke at the end of the credits if you wait around long enough. Although almost every movie claims in the fine print that “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental,” there’s no way in hell they expect us to actually believe it this time. It’s gotta be a gag.

“The Exorcism” tells the story of Anthony Miller, an alcoholic and a drug addict in recovery, who threw away his lucrative and respected career as a motion picture actor. When the star of a remake of “The Exorcist,” called “The Georgetown Project,” dies under mysterious circumstances, Miller accepts the job but falls retreats into his old vices, overwhelmed by horrifying childhood memories and, possibly, a real supernatural force. Only his teenaged child, a queer screenwriter named Lee (Ryan Simpkins, “Fear Street”), seems to care that he’s deteriorating. Can Anthony Miller truly be saved before he kills himself… or Lee?

This film was directed and co-written by Joshua John Miller, a former child actor who co-starred in the 1980s cult classics “Near Dark” and “Teen Witch.” Miller’s father was Jason Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony Award-winning, Oscar-nominated star of “The Exorcist.” After the slasher comedy “The Final Girls,” this marks the second screenplay Miller has co-written with M.A. Fortin about a teenager with a horror-movie actor for a parent, who finds themselves trapped inside of a horror movie for real.

If that’s a coincidence it’s the biggest coincidence of all time.

The thing is, both “The Final Girls” and “The Exorcism” are exceptionally interesting. “The Final Girls” is a meta-comedy version of this story, a whimsical genre subversion with a surprisingly big heart. “The Exorcism” is the ominous, tortured version of the same tale. Individually they are intriguing genre exercises. Taken as a whole they form a riveting and complicated dyad.

Russell Crowe gained much of his early notoriety from displays of on-screen power in films like “Romper Stomper,” “L.A. Confidential” and “Gladiator.” But he’s never more devastating than when he’s meek. Anthony Miller is a sad, wounded man and taking on the role of a Catholic priest is especially harrowing for him, because he was the victim of sexual violence as an altar boy. His director, Peter (Adam Goldberg), has no qualms about stoking Anthony’s substance abuse, his guilt over his dead wife, and his childhood pain, just to get a realistic performance.

“Tony,” Peter says, “You are irredeemable,” and that’s one of nicer things Anthony hears on set. There is a sentence that comes out of Adam Goldberg’s mouth that is so shockingly cruel that you half expect god, the devil, or at least the director to kill the character right then and there.

“The Exorcism” is not a subtle movie, and there is no rule that says any movie has to be. Cinematographer Simon Duggan (“Furiosa”) shoots the film as though every scene has bags under its eyes. The darkness inches in from the edge of each frame, giving the impression that “The Exorcism” is playing out in an uncomfortably tiny black box theater. This is an opportunity to dig deep into the pulsating meat of an actor’s soul, to scoop out their bloody guilt and show it to us.

The title refers to the movie-within-a-movie. It also refers to Anthony Miller, who may actually need a real-life exorcism before this movie ends. And before the closing credits, it may also apply to Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce), “The Georgetown Project’s” technical consultant, and a stand-in for the Catholic Church itself. He’s kind and sensitive and listens to everyone’s problems, but when Lee and her new girlfriend, Anthony’s co-star Blake (Chloe Bailey, “Swarm”), turn to him for help, Father Conor says he’ll do something. And it sure as hell looks like he waits until it’s probably too late to follow up on that.

The production of “The Exorcist” was, according to urban legend, itself quite haunted. “The Exorcism” suggests that the reason movies about the devil feel cursed is because the Catholic Church itself is cursed. It’s got more demons than Regan MacNeil ever did. And those demons come back in a big way, and their victims still need help, damn it. Getting to the heart of a story about faith when your faith has been brutally exploited would leave anyone feeling hollow, and in the rush to fill that void Miller turns to substance abuse, and lets a real demon in.

“The Exorcism” can be clunky. When Peter claims the movie-within-the-movie is “a psychological drama wrapped in the skin of a horror film,” it is perfectly acceptable to roll your eyes and yell “We get it!” right back at the screen. But this disturbing riff on “The Country Girl” (the country ghoul?) never seems anything less than earnest and sometimes — all puns intended — a little confessional. The skin of the horror movie is a little ill-fitting. “The Exorcism” only truly terrifies when it’s about a tortured parent lashing out against their own flesh-and-blood.

“The Exorcism” opens exclusively in theaters on June 21.

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‘The Exorcism’ Review: Losing Faith

Russell Crowe stars as an actor playing an exorcist who’s battling his own demons.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

“The Exorcism” starts from an instantly compelling premise: On the set of a horror movie about an exorcist, demons lurk. Horror films often tap into ancient fears rooted in myth; this is just a more modern one. As one character tells another, “All kinds of things happen on the sets of devil movies.” Then she names a few examples: “‘The Omen,’ ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘Poltergeist.’” It’s true — over decades, stories of freak accidents and deaths on those sets have grown into the kind of lore that can power its own horror film.

That “The Exorcist” is named in this list is a little funny, since the film-within-the-film is clearly just a variant on William Friedkin’s influential 1973 classic. The nested movie is even called “The Georgetown Project,” a reference to the setting of “The Exorcist.” (“The Exorcism,” directed by Joshua John Miller from a screenplay he wrote with M.A. Fortin, seems named to provoke the comparison, too, though that also makes talking about it a little confusing.) What’s more, the first scene in “The Exorcism” reveals that “The Georgetown Project” is about a priest having a crisis of faith who is called to cast a demon out of a teenage girl, and that the house built on the soundstage is a dead ringer for the more famous movie’s set. In other words: In “The Exorcism,” they’re basically making “The Exorcist.”

Religious horror — which is to say, horror movies that specifically evoke religious imagery — can be hopelessly hokey, thoughtlessly appropriative, or thoughtful. I’d put “The Exorcist,” one of Hollywood’s best meditations on faith and doubt, in the thoughtful camp, and for the first half-hour of “The Exorcism,” I though it would land there too. It’s about a famous actor named Tony Miller (Russell Crowe, looking sufficiently tortured), whose addictions and grief have recently derailed his career and life. He is given a chance to star as a priest in “The Georgetown Project” by its cranky jerk of a director (Adam Goldberg) after the role is suddenly and violently vacated. Tony thinks it is the salvation he needs.

Catholic symbology plays an outsized role in horror — thanks, in no small part, to the influence of “The Exorcist.” Often movies end up grappling with whether the words, rites and sacramental objects of the Catholic church have power of their own, regardless of the beliefs and righteousness of the wielder. “The Exorcism” dips into this inquiry but goes further. In this movie, Catholicism is both the villain and the hero.

Tony’s sardonic 16-year-old daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), for instance, shows up at home because she has been suspended from her Catholic boarding school for protesting the principal’s choice to fire her gay guidance counselor. She and Tony have a fraught relationship given Tony’s checkered past, which, we come to realize, has something to do with a horrifying experience from his days as an altar boy.

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