Some of these images are genuinely beautiful, eerie even. He travels a ways and then stops, and more things happen.īut 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. 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. We don't really know why he does or does not do things at any moment. The filmmakers are resolute in keeping EO mysterious and letting him be an animal.
But that's just you the viewer projecting, in the way you might while visiting a farm or zoo.
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.
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(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.)ĮO 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. 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. 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.
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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. 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.Īnd the odyssey begins. His sweet and doting trainer Kasandra ( Sandra Drzymalska) leads him through the tricks she's trained him to do. 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. The title character is grey with white flecks in his fur. 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. 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.
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