EO

IO stayed with me for days. This film is experienced and digested in the flesh. There are not many words in it so it is impossible to distance yourself from it by intellectualizing it. The places where animals live; the situations that happen to them - nothing we didn't know about - but shown from a different perspective - perspective of a donkey, a creature that is dependent on humans: it's owners (caretakers?) and the laws regarding animals.

I was touched and moved by something I had hitherto passed by indifferently: the fate of animals that are not given names. This film was difficult for me and appealed to me at the same time.

And last but not least I'm always very happy to see Isabelle Huppert on the screen.

If you are looking for a story in a movie this is probably not for you. This one is a piece of art though. Have you ever wondered what would a donkey do if you let it loose? This movie tries to answer that very question. You follow EO (pronounce it so that it sounds like a donkey), taken from a Polish circus because of bankruptcy, he gets away multiple times and ends up in Italy. He falls on the worst of the human race as well as good people. Any short story that starts during his journey never gets a resolution because he just leaves for other things. It is a bit frustrating at times, but you are here to follow EO, no-one else. The imagery is beautiful, and the music on top is just awesome. An underrated movie that you should see if you love art more than cinema.

Inspired by Bresson's 1966 Au Hasard du Balthazar, EO is a very worthwhile contemporary revision of an innocent animal's experience of the human condition. Our folly, our greed, our anger and violence, our hypocrisy, our hubris ... and many more vices, but occasionally moments of redeeming compassion. When human beings were hunter gatherers we were much closer to the behaviour of animals, and coexisted in an ecologically natural state. Well deserved Palme D'Ors for both the music and the movie. Excellent photography and sequencing too. This film takes us on an inexorable journey involving a gamut of emotions. See it at a cinema for the best experience.

The circus was your home but now it's closing, new outcomes are ahead, life's recomposing, a journey has begun, there'll be sorrow and some fun, lots of being led around and often roaming. You'll take the opportunities, that you're presented (you don't have a choice), and quite often you will feel, like you're resented, poorly treated by humans, but not always, some are friends, though they'll always seem to be, distressed, tormented.

The life of a donkey, the people it encounters, for good or bad, and the array of farms, fields, pens, containers, sanctuaries and otherwise that are used to restrict it, often quite unsuccessfully, as it's pushed from pillar to post - just as most animals are on their journey to the abattoir or slaughterhouse, does it remind you of anyone you know?

This nominee for Best International Film Oscar is a look at how humanity treats animals by using the perspective of the animal. In this case, Eo is both a work and a star donkey of a bankrupt touring circus that gets shut down. His true love is his co-star in his part of the show, Kassandra. When the authorities shut down the financially-strained circus, he is part of the confiscation, causing him to be torn away from Kassandra, upsetting him greatly. He escapes to go on a trek to find her. The movie focuses on him and his travails. I thought the perspective was refreshing, but it comes with a caveat that one experiences as the film progresses. I could not help getting caught up in the emotionalism that this displayed. I saw this a week ago and can not get it out of my head.