HOT TO TROT
EO A stoic donkey deserves all the prizes for its performance in Jerzy Skolimowski’s surreal fable…
The film is dedicated to animals,” says Polish veteran Jerzy Skolimowski (The Shout), talking about his splendid new film EO. “It’s a pure love for nature and animals which drove us into making this film.” An episodic account of one donkey’s travails through modern-day Europe, the film captivated audiences when it played in Cannes earlier this year, winning a share of the Jury Prize with The Eight Mountains.
Inspired after Skolimowski observed a donkey in a nativity recreation in a Sicilian village, the production used six of the Sardinian breed to perform on cue. “The donkey has this reputation of being stubborn and stupid,” comments the director. “Stubborn, yes, but I don’t agree that they’re stupid. They’re very intelligent, very sensitive animals. There was never any force from our side – never pushing the animal, never shouting.”
In the film, the donkey (nicknamed EO due to its braying) meets both kind and cruel humans, from football fans to aristocrats. Skolimowski wanted to show how mankind treats animals as mere objects. “Like the industrial production of meat where the animals are being kept in appalling conditions. It’s macabre; it’s a crime really.” Working so closely with the donkeys and other creatures changed a lot of attitudes. “Probably half of the crew stopped eating meat or at least reducing meat consumption drastically.”
Naturally, EO has been compared to Robert Bresson’s own donkey classic, 1966’s Au Hasard Balthazar, a masterpiece Skolimowski watched in the cinema upon release.
“To my greatest surprise, at the very end of the film… I had tears in my eyes. The only time when I shed a tear in the cinema. Never before, never after! And that was the greatest lesson I got from Robert Bresson; that the animal can move the viewer stronger than any human character.”
While Skolimowski has always tried to test the boundaries of narrative across his 62-year career, he feels EO is very different from his earlier work. “The difference is my attitude. I really care about the protagonist. Compared to Vincent Gallo in Essential Killing…
I didn’t care about him personally!” Gallo’s Afghan fighter in his 2010 survival thriller was too remote from his own experience. But he found true sanctuary with his donkey friends on EO.
“Whenever we had a free moment, I didn’t go to have coffee or to rest somewhere. I spent it with the donkey. So I was always very close, always talking to him, basically whispering to him. So he knew that I am a close soul. Looking at those melancholic eyes, I sensed that we felt the same. I call it the feeling of coexistence. It’s only us and the rest of the world is somehow separated. It was like embracing each other emotionally.”
EO OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 3 FEBRUARY.
‘Donkeys are very intelligent, very sensitive animals’ JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI