Year:  2022

Director:  Jerzy Skolimowski

Rated:  MA

Release:  April 6, 2023

Distributor: Hi Gloss Entertainment

Running time: 87 minutes

Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Hola, Tako, Marietta, Sandra Drzymalska, Isabelle Huppert

Intro:
... exquisitely shot and lit, and suffused with lyricism and visual poetry. 

This is a great, moving and rather original film. (Echoes of the 1966 French tragedy Au Hazard Balthazar notwithstanding.) The titular character is a donkey, and that’s a wonderful subject, given that they are so beautiful, enigmatic and intelligent, and have many other sterling qualities about which there is no room to gush here. But it’s very much a double-edged story – frequently as dark, sinister and confronting plot-wise as it is gorgeous – so it’s important to note this closing-credit disclaimer going in: “This film was made out of love for animals and nature … The animals’ well-being on set was always our first priority.”

What we have here is the picaresque tale of the wanderings and constantly changing fortunes of a grey donkey. Certain moments – the sustained close-up on his big black sad eye, for example – will stay with you. EO meets and is befriended or mistreated by – among others – circus hands, a priest, a truck driver and a football team. He remains largely impassive, as donkeys tend to, and this is no exercise in contrived anthropomorphism.  In any case, it’s to some extent a study of human nature – with all that implies – as well as our fellow creatures. Those onscreen also fleetingly include, in the manner of Night Of The Hunter, a wolf, an owl, a fox and a frog.

EO is exquisitely shot and lit, and suffused with lyricism and visual poetry. Pawel Mykietyn’s soundtrack is atmospheric too, incidentally, veering from thrash metal to classical to considerable effect. If 84-year-old veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski doesn’t make another film, this one will stand as a marvellously imaginative swansong.  Don’t miss it.

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