Eo

True to its reputation in our Western civilisations, EO stubbornly clings to life, constantly chooses freedom, leaps over every fence, and escapes into its dreams, whose red filter stirs every fantasy: its metamorphosis into a robotic creature, an upside-down world where waterfalls cascade in reverse, wind turbines inviting a nocturnal dance that is also the night of the hunter, set in a supposedly primeval forest, a temporarily wild and perilous realm inhabited by owls, foxes, wolves and strange insects. Everything in EO contributes to a radical elegy: cinematography (Michal Dymek), music (Pawel Mykietyn), editing (Agnieszka Glinska), Skolimowski’s direction, and the actors’ performances. In this respect, the six donkeys who successively embody EO would have deserved, at the last Cannes Film Festival where the film was in the official competition, a collective award for best ensemble performance. Through its predominantly sensory approach and by virtue of an invisible coincidence unique to cinema, Skolimowski joins the ranks of those rare filmmakers (Weerasethakul, Godard, Pelechian) concerned about our world, which is more than ever heading for ruin. You emerge from EO as from a fairy tale, spellbound and anxious, yet enriched by a splendour that will outlive us."" (Gérard Lefort; lesinrocks.com)