★★★★

starring: lorenzo zurzolo, isabelle huppert, sandra drzymalska, and Mateusz Kosciukiewicz

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REVIEWER: lyall carter

EO 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.

The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life's path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune, randomly turns his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss.

Directed by celebrated auteur Jerzy Skolimowski, EO comes with an incredible pedigree being the joint winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes and nominated for Best International Feature at the Oscars. But it’s also a rare film in that it’s a cinematic tale featuring an animal as its lead that doesn’t demand its title character to dance, sing, or to simply be adorable. Pixar this is not. 

Narratively EO doesn’t have a demanding narrative drive other than following its title character attempting to survive the cruelty of the world they find themselves in. There isn’t even much of a hint of falling for the temptation to ‘humanise’ EO - communicating more complex human emotions through them. EO is a donkey - pure and simple. 

But through the journey that EO finds themselves on, Skolimowski attempts to construct a modern day fable, decrying the dismissive posture humanity has not only towards animals but nature herself. Largely Skolimowski succeeds, producing a film that should act not only as a cautionary tale but as a mirror in which we can see ourselves more fully.

Michal Dymek’s cinematography allows EO to sing, bringing gorgeous and brutal images to the screen, that helps the audience to be enveloped into its world and story. Similarly, composer Pawel Mykietyn’s score is hauntingly beautiful and the closest we get to EO’s emotions and state of mind being represented in the film.

A haunting yet beautiful modern day fable, EO is a necessary and cautionary tale of humanity’s place in the world.