86 min, POLAND/ITALY, 2022, Polish, English, French, Italian
Principal Cast: Sandra Drzymalska, Lorenzo Zurzolo, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, Isabelle Huppert
Veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski’s gripping new drama, which shared the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes competition, follows a sentient donkey as it experiences the best and worst mankind has to offer.
Told through a series of visually striking vignettes and accompanied by a sweeping score, the film’s anchor is the anthropomorphic eyes of a donkey that senses its way through the wheels of fortune. These include helpless indenturement inside a travelling circus under the care of wide-eyed Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), heading full speed for a glue factory on Mateo’s (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) lorry, a fractious adventure with prodigal son–turned-priest Vito (Lorenzo Zurzolo), and a peek inside the so-called good life in the bourgeois home of a bored housewife named The Countess (Isabelle Huppert). We are only left to guess what Eo — after seeing the best and worst of humanity — would think.
Skolimowski’s chef d’oeuvre makes clear that we’re not so different from the most common beasts: we are born, briefly experience suffering and (if lucky) love, are unceremoniously exploited for our labour, and then we die. EO, a loving homage to Robert Bresson’s Au Hazard Balthazar, is a beautifully photographed, fable-like journey through contemporary Europe that asks us to live our lives with the same humility and dignity as our animals do.
EO | January 16 | 7:30 p.m. | Tilley Hall, UNB Campus
The film series is open to everyone. Regular admission is $10.00. Member’s admission: $7.00
Full-Year Memberships are regular $30.00. Students/Seniors (65 years and up)/NBFC Members are $18.00. Half-Year Memberships are available for $20.00 with a student/senior price of $12.00.
Tickets and Memberships are Available at Tilley Hall, Room 102, UNB on Monday Nights. Memberships are also available at the NB Film Co-op: 732 Charlotte Street (Charlotte Street Arts Centre) in September annually. For more information please email: info@nbfilmcoop.com or call 455-1632.
