EO: A Movie Seen Through the Accusing Gaze of a Donkey

Mise-en-scène repeatedly emphasises that the movie is being told from the point of view of a donkey. In many scenes the camera is set at the height of Eo's head. Dialogue is often barely audible, and except for a few scenes has virtually no meaning for the development of the plot. Human characters are often shot from a long distance and relegated to the background; we hardly see close-ups of their faces. Yet we often see the close-up of Eo's head, with the black eyes of the animal reflecting the world around it like black mirrors in the centre of our screen. Skolimowski repeats this shot many times during the movie, like he wanted to remind the audience about the animal-centric perspective of EO.

Film-wise, that perspective brings rather mixed results. Skolimowski and his cinematographer Michał Dymek are sometimes able to stage truly stunning scenes; in its best moments, EO speaks in a language of film that seems refreshing, innovative and daring. But large fragments of EO surprisingly fail to engage emotionally; in some scenes we feel that the director is trying too hard to elicit the desired emotional effect.

Skolimowski, on the one hand, is trying to make a 'post-humanist' movie, where human and non-human actors operate on the same level and the human perspective ceases to be privileged. On the other, the director can't resist the temptation to humanize Eo. Throughout the movie, Skolimowski repeatedly shows a flash-back scene where we see Eo with his animal trainer from the circus, where his journey begun. The staging suggests that what we're seeing is either a reminiscence of the donkey or its dream - an expression of longing for a young woman serving not only as a trainer but also as a mother figure.

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