For too long, donkeys have been, well, the butt of many jokes and comical situations in all manner of film and television. We know them well in features like Shrek (2001), where Eddie Murphy indeed shines as the four-hoofed character foil to his ogre companion through the series but still often plays to the stereotypes as comic relief. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), which is currently raking in awards, also features an endearing miniature donkey named Penny, the beloved pet of Collin Farrell’s character Pádraic that consoles him in his darkest moments, but is just that.
Not until now have we received a more serious, heart-warming film that not only puts a donkey front and center as the main character but the audience within its equine shoes, letting us experience everything through its innocent, lashed eyes. Polish road movie EO, which follows a donkey born at a Polish circus that gets sold off to strangers and later breaks free, has given a one-of-a-kind sentient experience that few other films have with animals, shelving CGI in favor of quality writing and cinematography. As it stands nominated for an Oscar and on the verge of its European theatrical release, Empire obtained an exclusive three-minute clip of the film that can be viewed here.
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The clip shows the donkey break free of its enclosure at the farm one night, leaving not only his past life of servitude as a performer and joke piece (as donkeys typically are) but as a servant of humans in general. He wanders out into the Polish wilderness, wild and free. Through the donkey’s eyes, we follow his curiosity as he goes deep into the forest, chasing a toad upstream and listening to the sounds of other animals he’s likely never seen or heard, such as owls and wolves. Though the clip ends there, the remainder of the film follows the long-eared fellow as he travels far and wide across Poland, visiting cities, a sporting event, and another farm where horses look as trapped as he was. He witnesses some of humanity’s best and worst through a unique lens, giving audiences a new, emotionally raw perspective that is hard to look away from.
EO has since been released in theaters across the U.S. but is slated to premiere in the UK and in Irish cinemas soon on Feb. 3.
Related: EO Filmmakers Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska Discuss Their Award-Winning Film
Neigh a Difference Between EO and Spielberg’s War Horse?
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Upon watching just the clip or the entire film of EO, some movie aficionados may notice that the movie poses a striking conceptual and symbolic similarity to one of Steven Spielberg’s most dramatic and sometimes overlooked films, War Horse (2011). Set before and during World War I in England, the film begins from the perspective of a farm family who needs a horse to plow their fields so that they can grow crops. Ted, the father of the family, goes to town to buy a horse at auction and, in an alcoholic stupor, winds up buying a young, lean colt, much to his wife’s dismay, who demands he takes it back. His son Albert intervenes and decides to raise and train the colt, whom he calls Joey. He manages to teach Joey various tricks, such as coming at the call of an owl whistle and how to work the plow, much to his parents’ surprise.
As Albert grows incredibly close to Joey, his father still scrambles to make rent for their farm and decides to take Joey to sell to the British army, which is actively recruiting for the upcoming war. Joey gets sold before Albert can stop him, and his beloved horse is whisked off to the front lines of the onslaught between England and Germany. While much of the start of the film is from the human perspective, once Joey is torn from home, the perspective shifts almost entirely to him. He endures some of the worst, most tragic aspects of war and winds up running across England and France as far as he can, meeting some of the best and worst the world has to offer. While EO is far more reserved in terms of dialogue throughout the film, War Horse tells a human story in tandem with Joey’s. Like EO, Joey embarks on an incredible, reflective journey, albeit against his will and in constant fear from threats of war. Still, their symbolic journey is undeniably similar and echoes one another in many ways.
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