Like children, domesticated animals experience humans from a perspective of helplessness.  Life is good when they are treated well.  When they are treated poorly, however, they have little choice but to endure it.  EO, a foreign film made in Poland, is  the story of a donkey who bears silent witnesses to the worst and occasionally the best aspects of human behavior.

At the beginning of this tale, EO is a circus performer.  (He’s given that name because that’s what his braying sounds like.)  He loves his trainer Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), and the feeling is mutual.  When they perform, their act brings cheers.  The good treatment EO receives  from Kasandra does not extend to all members of the circus, however.  A circus hand looks at EO as a labor-saving device, and forces him to pull a cart of scrap metal to the local junkyard.  As fate would have it, the government has just passed a law that forbids the use of animals in circus acts.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as EO will soon discover.  In an instant, EO is carted away from the only life he has ever known to a horse farm.

EO’s role at the farm is that of a general laborer, assisting the trainers while they tend to the  beautiful horses.  Compared to EO, the horses are things of majestic beauty and strength.  EO performs his duties adequately, but is uneasy around his new neighbors (sorry).  EO has spent his life exclusively around people, and the sounds of high-pitched neighs and kicked stalls startle him.  One day, when a stallion is being introduced to a mare, the stallion’s whinnies scare EO and he accidentally knocks over a trophy case.

Judged unfit to be a horse’s companion, EO is sent to a petting farm.  His new job mainly involves being around special-needs children and giving them rides.  Given that EO is very comfortable around humans, he is well-suited for this role.  One night, Kasandra visits him and tearfully admits how much she misses him.  After she leaves, EO remembers his days in the circus and knocks down the fence.  He trots down the road in the darkness in search of his trainer, but she is nowhere to be found.

EO spends the night in the woods, where he looks out-of-place among the other living things in the forest.  Lasers detect his presence, but he is unharmed.  (The same cannot be said for the  foxes.)  In the morning, EO wanders over to the town nearby, where he is captured by firemen.  From this point on, EO’s life becomes less safe and much more precarious.  The firemen take him to their soccer match as the team mascot, and his presence is interpreted as good luck when his team wins.  Unfortunately, fans of the losing team violently trash the victory party and take their frustrations out on EO.  He doesn’t understand danger and his inherent trust in humans leaves him critically wounded.

While EO recovers at an animal hospital, he is able to exact a modicum of revenge on an assistant who sees the animals as a quick profit.  (You know the saying about never standing behind horses?  It applies to donkeys as well.)  From there, EO’s put on a truck bound for a meat processing plant, makes an unlikely friend who takes him to an Italian villa, and finally to a ranch where he is caught up in a cattle drive.  The movie ends with a sound that I’m not sure is meant to signify EO’s fate or not, but it is unnerving to say the least.

EO’s story is told as a series of vignettes, each one commenting on how dramatically his life changes with each new owner.  Simply put, he’s either a pet, a servant or meat, depending on the viewpoint of his master.  EO’s fate is completely random and he’s helpless as to whether he lives or dies.  As the movie makes clear, humans are the dominant species, and EO has no choice but to trust that they have his best interests at heart.  Sometimes they do, but oftentimes they don’t.

EO repeatedly highlights the unbalanced relationship between humans and animals.  Humans see animals as their property, with no innate rights or autonomy.  EO must be able to prove his worth through work or he will be consumed.  He has no value in the eyes of humans other than what he can provide to them.  I’m not sure whether EO is making a case for animal welfare or animal rights.  The movie addresses both arguments, but I don’t believe it makes an overt case for either.  It doesn’t explicitly state that humans shouldn’t own animals, but it does show that humans often treat them without dignity or respect.  Is that an argument for humans not owning animals at all?  Possibly.  However, the movie also depicts the relationship between humans and animals sympathetically, acknowledging how they have become inexorably linked over time.  EO shows that the problem isn’t necessarily people in general, but bad people.  By forcing us to experience everything through EO’s eyes, the movie tells us that our relationship with animals is not as good as we may think it is.  The movie is honest about the state of things, hopeful that this approach will be more convincing than a didactic approach.

At its best moments (and there are several), EO reminded me of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.  As with that short story, the movie follows an animal through a series of adventures that   are incredibly moving as they shift between triumph to tragedy.  Unlike Buck, the golden retriever in London’s story, EO is unable to live his life without people.  Instead, he wanders from place to place, hopeful that the people he encounters will treat him well.  As a result, the movie has a “blown by the wind” sensibility that gives it an episodic feel.  The movie drags at times, even though its runtime is only 1:28.  Writer-director Jerzy Skolimowski hits the mark with his honest depictions of human behavior, good and bad.  (He does indulge in a few artistic flourishes that I found pretentious.)  Even though the movie is about EO, the human characters were underwritten to a fault.  There’s a sequence with the brilliant Isabelle Huppert that felt  completely incongruous and left me completely puzzled as to why it was included at all.  These flaws were minor in comparison to the overall impact the movie had on me.  Although the movie is told via a simple construction of images, the incredible beauty and disturbing cruelty they depict combine to tell a story that is both emotionally rich and unforgettable.  Recommended.