By far the most intriguing category at the 95th Academy Awards is that of best international feature. While German director Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front seems an obvious pack leader (it’s up for nine awards – including best picture), there’s buzz around Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (the first Irish feature to be nominated in this category), and enthusiastic support for Santiago Mitre’s historical drama Argentina, 1985. But the dark horse – or rather donkey – is EO, the strangely wonderful Polish entry from veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski, inspired by Robert Bresson’s 1966 French masterpiece Au hasard Balthazar.
“This film was made out of our love for animals and nature,” says a closing intertitle, reassuring viewers that “the animals’ wellbeing on set was always our first priority”. That’s good to know, because the world through which the titular donkey travels includes its fair share of violent encounters with bestial humans. There are the football hooligans who beat him because they believe his braying lost them a game; there’s the furrier who snaps caged foxes’ necks and gets a hoof in the face for his troubles; there’s the illegal flesh-trader who sells EO for salami; and the donkey’s unexpected friend who confesses that he’s eaten “hundreds of kilograms of meat”, including donkey.
