It is a donkey’s life for EO, and why should it not be? He is , after all, a donkey. Polish auteur director Jerry Skolimowski’s EO is , on the surface, like any other animal-centric drama where the dog/cat/horse encounters the cruelty around in picaresque outings.
In EO I found most of the people that EO the donkey encounters to be kind as he sets out be reunited with his affectionate trainer Kasandra(Sandra Drzymalska) in a circus that shuts shop leavingpoor EO homeless, jobless, rudderless.
The thing is, EO’s journey thereafter is neither filled with hardship or cruelty. Most people he encounters are gentle with him. They feed him provide him a shelter and home. But EO is kind of lost as he is lost in kindness. Is he mourning for Kassandra? She shows up on EO’s birthday with a gift and a song, and is forced to leave. Admittedly it is a poignant moment.
Director Jerry Skolimowski is not keen on milking these moments. He is not in this to give out a message on compassion for animals. That is taken for granted, as the film, inured in relevances far beyond the obvious, thrusts deeper and deeper into the mire of mediocrity that governs modern life.
There is no particular cruelty involved in EO’s enlightened journey. He is what he is, and he is where he is. He must make the best of the situation. The only time EO witnesses stark naked cruelty is when a silly but goodhearted truck driver, carrying EO and others of his ilk to a meat factory, has his throat brutally slit by a homeless woman whom the truckdriver had shown extremely kindness , feeding her , and then making the fatal mistake of jokingly suggesting sex in exchange of his kindness.
It is a touchy world out there. And the chances of a homeless sensitive donkey surviving alone is pretty bleak. EO doesn’t make a case for the donkey protagonist’s survival. It aims at something more, something more substantial. This is where the character of Mateo(Mateusz Kościukiewicz) comes in. Mateo is a nomad, a traveller who hasn’t been home for months. When he befriends EO(whom he finds abandoned tied to a lamp-post, or maybe just waiting for the next move in his life as the authorities sort out the mess around EO) Mateo decides to go home to meet his stepmother played by the legendary Isabelle Rupert.
A hint of incest is suggested in their relationship. I was left wondering what was the connection of this subplot with EO’s life. Maybe there wasn’t meant to be any connection. Maybe the director shot the film with no express purpose, except to follow EO’s trail. While EO makes no sense of what goes around him—there is a feverishly pitched battle between two rival football teams , the only time EO gets roughed up—we , the audience are meant to make sense of human behaviour while EO struggles to understand the difference between the good touch and the bad touch.
EO is filled with the musk of empathy and compassion. It is a delightfully unrehearsed mellow drama letting the donkey do all the heavy lifting. The last film where a donkey played such a pivotal part was in Caroline Vignal’s eccentrically titled My Donkey My Lover & I.
Antoinette Lapouge is the kind of clumsy, tactless heroine whom the French like to put in uncomfortable situations. She is prone to fits of mortifying impulsiveness .And in the oddly entitled My Donkey,My Lover & I—no, they aren’t calling the lover a donkey, there is actually a donkey playing one of the main characters—when we first meet Antoinette she is making out with one of her kindergarten student’s father in the classroom. If you think that’s as inappropriate as her conduct is going to get, you are wrong.
It gets worse and worse. Her lover Vladimir(Benjamin Lavernhe) is a much-married man with a wife and a daughter whom he takes on a vacation at a scenic resort known for its donkey trekking. In a face-palm action of desperation Antoinette follows her lover to family holiday.What follows could have all been very predictable and horny. Horny, it is. Once at the holiday resort Antoinette makes out with her lover right under his family’s nose. She is disgusting in her carnal urgency, pathetic in her futile efforts to win him back and embarrassing in her intrusions into her lover’s family vacation.Miraculously the film allows Antoinette’s clouded judgement to remain untouched by extraneous intervention. It is as though she is the master of her own destiny, no matter how twisted. In the hot pursuit of her two-timing lover the plot is often prone to bouts of moving introspection, lighting up Antoinette’s trekking time with tons talk time with her stubborn donkey. My Donkey My Lover & I delivers the expected,though in unexpected ways. It is spiked and smooth simultaneously.
While Antoinette thinks(pretends?) nobody can see her adulterous moves she is also a very selfaware evolved human being who knows the mess she has gotten herself into. In the end her friendship with her travelling -companion donkey seems not only pre-destined but also moving.Laure Calamy(already a star in Call Me Your Agent) provides her character with a rare empathy.No matter how goofy her moves Antoinette never appears undignified.She may be in a situation that most educationists wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.
But Antoinette knows how to make lemonade when life serves her lemons.Her confrontations with her lover’s sensible sharp practical wife(Olivia Cote) make Antoinette look misbegotten . But her mistakes are hers to make. She never disowns then. Even in her worst moments Antoinette is selfaware. Having a donkey for company needn’t be an exercise in stupidity. What if the donkey is far more intelligent and sensible than the human it must bear?
Such are the questions that weave in and out of this typically French film which tells us that screen heroes can be as obstinate as they come. That’s what makes them heroes sometimes.
