EO: NZIFF Review

It starts with a pulsating red flashing light and ends with a shock, and everything in between of EO's journey through life seems designed to provide nightmare fuel to anyone who cares anything about animals.

Director Jerzy Skolimowski's story is one of simplicity, of innocence snatched and of the horrors inflicted on others - some will see religious allegories in this story, some will find beauty in the moments that show a donkey seemingly remembering the love it felt from its first owner.

In truth, Eo is somewhat of an ethereal experience in places as sound and visuals collide together to seemingly inconsequential effect early on, but as the story pieces itself together of a donkey going through life, it comes together in a haunting tableaux that's likely to provoke discussion after the cinema's lights go up.

Slices of life crash into memories from Eo, and at times, Skolimowski's film feels like the kind of thing a Disney or CGI animator could anthropomorphise to devastating effect. But Skolimowski convinces the audience to invest in Eo, with early shots of a grey melancholy looking donkey staring directly in the camera.

In many ways, the donkey is but an audience vessel, seeing everything good and bad that mankind has to offer - and as such, the journey may prove to be harder to bear for some than others.

The overriding effect is one of an innocent troubled by others - from the POV beating by skinheads to standing on a walkway near a dam, the film reaches levels of emotional pain that are at times difficult to bear.

It's hard to discuss EO without raising the pain of its ending, but by the time it comes, you may find yourself exhausted by the denouement as you realise how much has been invested in Eo's story and by how little has been done to turn the film into a mawkishly sentimental piece.

With carefully constructed imagery and compelling cinematography, Eo is a film that will haunt and appall in equal measures.