Do Donkeys Act?

I'll admit straight off I did not see all, or even most, of this film. I was driven out of the theater at a festival showing after about half an hour. I would have stayed for what looked like a perfectly nice documentary about donkeys at a rescue center if I could have somehow turned the sound off. Why? This movie has the most insufferably "poetical" voice-over narration imaginable, most of it simply, pretentiously describing what we are already looking at on screen. It's like observing a field of flowers, only having someone insistently murmur in your ear "Oh! The flamboyant florescence of flora in the field! How they shimmer and sway! What a precocity of poppies!" Etc.

You think I'm exaggerating? Wait till you see the film. It's like Bad Poetry Night has somehow assumed control of The Nature Channel by armed force. The fact that Willem Dafoe is the person reading this tripe does improve it--his voice sort of tamps down the cheese factor to a degree-- without being able to redeem it. (On the other hand, I don't see any writing credit, so it's just possible that Dafoe actually wrote the dreck he recites.)

I don't know what they were thinking. It's rare that you see a movie so completely torpedo'd by one obviously terrible creative choice. This narration is this movie's equivalent to Sofia Coppola in "Godfather III"--the indulgence so wrong-headed it sinks the entire enterprise. Without that element, "Do Donkeys Act?" might be a 6, 7 or 8 for all I know. With it, I'm giving it a 4 just because it's well-shot, well-intentioned, and has lots of appealing shots of donkeys--but in experiential terms that verbal diarrhea makes it more like a 2 or 3, something you can barely tolerate. In fact, I couldn't tolerate it.

Maybe they'll figure out their mistake and re-work the soundtrack before this travels any further. I sure hope so.

I have to agree with the review of ofumalow, yet unlike ofumalow I watched the whole film and no, it doesn't get much better. This film wasn't what I had in mind when I thought about a documentary that deals with donkeys at a rescue center. I, personally, really wished to hear from the people in the rescue center about their work there and about the donkeys. Now, I can live with the fact that this movie doesn't do it, but why this horrible narration in the background? it was unbearable. I saw quite few people just leaving the theater after a while. This movie had a potential, but it doesn't live up to its potential, mostly because of this narration. As ofumalow said, it just sounds like some bad poetry. I couldn't believe someone actually wrote all of that and I couldn't also find a reason why. It almost feels like someone wrote poets about donkeys and just looked for an excuse to use them somewhere,and voila this film. I like donkeys and I wished to see a documentary about them, but instead I felt more like I'm in some literature class (and not such a good one either). Just get rid of this narration and you'd already do a lot of grace to this film.

First off, this is an experimental documentary. So it's likely that someone looking for the dumbed down, NatGeo-ish 'What Are Donkeys All About?' "documentary" may be disappointed. This movie has a unique way of presenting its story, and if you can cut the poetry a break, it does quite a good job of it. The movie uses long takes- a technique I really appreciate- and has its own pace and personality. I went in knowing very little about donkeys, and when it ended I practically wanted to adopt one.

Dafoe's voiceover is powerful and well read. The poetry can reach a bit too far at times (as was thoroughly dissected in other reviews) but if you just roll with it, the perspective you're granted is unique, substantive, and worth while. Even if the poetry was Shakespearean in its quality, the movie would still be quite the same experience. If you can attempt to understand what the directors have done, and turn of the armchair poetry critic inside your mind, there is a very beautiful film here.