Janus Contemporaries: EO

Discuss releases in the Janus Contemporaries, Eclipse, and Essential Art House lines and the films on them.
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hearthesilence
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Janus Contemporaries: EO

#1 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Nov 18, 2022 2:08 am

Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska are in town to promote EO as it opens this weekend. (They're doing a Q&A at Film Forum tomorrow/Friday, and another Q&A plus reception and introduction at Lincoln Center on Saturday.)

I saw it again tonight and it's better the second time around. It really does grow on you if you love animals, and I don't mean that in a trite or pat way - as a title card makes clear, this was made with a love of animals and nature in mind, and it does so without anthropomorphizing them like some Disney cartoon. The film really fleshes out the idea that the way society treats its animals says a lot about them, either as individuals or about the culture they live under.

Skolimowski and Piaskowska (his wife, co-writer and producer) both discussed why those chose to make this film, and it actually began with both of them being tired of conventional narrative. Their previous film(s) (which I haven't seen yet) apparently followed a conventional dramatic arc, and they both thought it would be boring to do yet another film that way. They weren't sure what to do until they took a vacation to a small town where a festival of some sort was happening. (I can't recall the details well because it was all unfamiliar to me, but he joked how the festival celebrated life 100 years ago and yet life in that town was still pretty much the same - barbers still cut the same hairstyles, the pizza had remained the same, etc.) At some point they stumbled on to a donkey in a barn full of loud animals, and they were drawn to the stoicism and distance the donkey seemed to have. By making this film from the perspective of the donkey, they were able to free themselves from those previous conventions.

Many have brought up Bresson's film, and though that didn't give Skolimowski the idea of EO, he was familiar with it. He explains when he made his first film, he was fresh out of school and didn't know what the future held for him. Then he got a call from Cahiers du Cinéma asking to interview him. He didn't understand why they would because he was still an unknown, but they explained they had seen his feature and ranked it as #2 in their year's best list. He went silent with disbelief...then asked who was #1. It was Au Hasard Balthazar, which he had not seen. So he asked if he could do the interview in one or two days, which they agreed to, and he went to see Bresson's film. Originally he went in with the mindset of "why did he place the camera here and instead of here," etc. (and later he said he was still curious as to why Bresson would stay with a 50mm lens and not use more), and to his surprise, he broke down and cried at the end, something he never did before for a film. He explained that with humans, there's always the knowledge or belief that they're acting for the camera. But you don't have that with animals, and that made everything all the more powerful to him.

Also I'm impressed that he knew his lenses, which I guess directors had to in the days before on-set monitors, etc. He explained to the front row that a 35mm lens would allow them to see his wife's shoes up to the top of her head, but a 50mm lens would only be shoulder up, which to him meant staying with 50mm and nothing else would make things very difficult. (He also mentioned that he knew couldn't make his film similar to Bresson's, and one thing he did was use a LOT of different lenses.)


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DarkImbecile
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Re: The Films of 2022

#3 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:22 pm

I mentioned in the 1966 thread that I usually find myself cool on films that depend on an emotional connection with animals and was not particularly enamored with Au hasard Balthazar in particular, so it took me a while to finally catch the Cannes competition entry that seems to be a direct descendant of that Bresson classic... and of course when I did I was really taken with Jerzy Skolimowski's EO.

This was my first Skolimowski, and I was not prepared for how visually exciting and dynamic Michał Dymek's cinematography was going to be, nor the intensity and surreality of the imagery — if I was making a list of my favorite shots from 2022, this movie would feature prominently. Paweł Mykietyn's score has a similarly mesmeric effect, veering from mournful to ominous, symphonic to electronic. There are a handful of focus shifts — particularly in a couple of shots where Eo is being transported in trailers — that are just spectacular, and Skolimowski makes great use of inventive POV shots offering the perspectives of a scrapyard crane or inside a dewdrop. There are also sequences of intense surreality that are pretty unforgettable — Eo in a field crisscrossed by laser sights, a seemingly impossible tunnel filled with bats, waterfalls roaring in reverse.

Perhaps most notable is the way Skolimowski seems to be suggesting this donkey's interiority, memory, and even imagination: there's a point where Eo is driven past a herd of horses running free in a field, and the camera is suddenly swooping through and among the galloping animals, as if our less physically majestic protagonist is picturing what it would be like to join them. Several of these moments make use of red lights and filters after introducing Eo in a similar fashion as part of a circus act; perhaps the most indelible of these is a sequence where Eo crests a hill just before dawn and sees the reddening horizon, then is moving through a red forest underneath a soaring camera that suddenly halts opposite a towering windmill and abruptly begins to rotate in perfect alignment with its blades.

In contrast to my usual reaction to most of these types of films, I often found the human elements here to be the weak link (particularly the Isabelle Huppert section toward the end) and wanted to get back to the entrancing travels of this donkey through an inexplicably alien, often hostile world. EO is real achievement, both as an exemplar of its sub-genre and as a visual marvel, and I'm thrilled that Janus' acquisition signals the imminent availability of a hopefully top-tier physical edition.

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aox
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
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Re: The Films of 2022

#4 Post by aox » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:38 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:22 pm
I mentioned in the 1966 thread that I usually find myself cool on films that depend on an emotional connection with animals and was not particularly enamored with Au hasard Balthazar in particular, so it took me a while to finally catch the Cannes competition entry that seems to be a direct descendant of that Bresson classic... and of course when I did I was really taken with Jerzy Skolimowski's EO.

This was my first Skolimowski, and I was not prepared for how visually exciting and dynamic Michał Dymek's cinematography was going to be, nor the intensity and surreality of the imagery — if I was making a list of my favorite shots from 2022, this movie would feature prominently. Paweł Mykietyn's score has a similarly mesmeric effect, veering from mournful to ominous, symphonic to electronic. There are a handful of focus shifts — particularly in a couple of shots where Eo is being transported in trailers — that are just spectacular, and Skolimowski makes great use of inventive POV shots offering the perspectives of a scrapyard crane or inside a dewdrop. There are also sequences of intense surreality that are pretty unforgettable — Eo in a field crisscrossed by laser sights, a seemingly impossible tunnel filled with bats, waterfalls roaring in reverse.

Perhaps most notable is the way Skolimowski seems to be suggesting this donkey's interiority, memory, and even imagination: there's a point where Eo is driven past a herd of horses running free in a field, and the camera is suddenly swooping through and among the galloping animals, as if our less physically majestic protagonist is picturing what it would be like to join them. Several of these moments make use of red lights and filters after introducing Eo in a similar fashion as part of a circus act; perhaps the most indelible of these is a sequence where Eo crests a hill just before dawn and sees the reddening horizon, then is moving through a red forest underneath a soaring camera that suddenly halts opposite a towering windmill and abruptly begins to rotate in perfect alignment with its blades.

In contrast to my usual reaction to most of these types of films, I often found the human elements here to be the weak link (particularly the Isabelle Huppert section toward the end) and wanted to get back to the entrancing travels of this donkey through an inexplicably alien, often hostile world. EO is real achievement, both as an exemplar of its sub-genre and as a visual marvel, and I'm thrilled that Janus' acquisition signals the imminent availability of a hopefully top-tier physical edition.
As I have aged, I have absolutely begun to eschew any movies focused on animals. And as you say, rely on them as vessels of emotional manipulation. I'd like to ask, does this film have any on-screen physical abuse of the donkey? Even Bresson's film has a little. My partner is even more persistent on this topic. Let's just say, in Triangle of Sadness, a movie that isn't about animals or an animal character,
SpoilerShow
the donkey death scene in the third act didn't go well for her
. Just doing some due diligence in case EO ever comes up. Thanks

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: EO

#5 Post by The Narrator Returns » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:53 pm

Skolimowski leaves most of the abuse the donkey suffers off-screen, but not showing it barely makes a difference in how visceral it ends up being. I'm thinking especially of
SpoilerShow
a scene where a group of soccer hooligans corner the donkey and beat him close to death, even as it's quick and shot from the donkey's perspective, it would almost certainly be too much for someone with a strong sensitivity to animals being harmed.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: EO

#6 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jan 25, 2023 6:26 pm

aox, my partner is similarly sensitive to any implicit hints of animal suffering, and I don't think I'd risk it, though it's not as emphasized as I expected it to be here. Obviously since it's not a trigger I share, I can't really speak to how one who has a delicacy would respond to that drowning out the positive reframe of that harm, but I thought the best aspect of the film (which I thought was fine, but not outstanding) is how Skolimowski manages to use the medium's aesthetic potentials to capture EO's resilience and immutably unconditional positive regard in a spiritual light amidst a dynamic corporeal world (where the people and events and problems within felt devalued and even superfluous in contrast with how EO was silently framed with enduring merit, though I have no idea if that was the intention- to bring meditative humanism into an animal's observed soul, and against the typical inflation we grant to pitstops along the road)

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aox
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Re: EO

#7 Post by aox » Fri Jan 27, 2023 1:43 pm

Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate it.

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: Eo

#8 Post by yoloswegmaster » Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:31 pm

Coming out in April:

Image

Extras:

Interview with Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska (2022): Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska (the co-writer of EO) in conversation. Recorded at the Lincoln Centre in New York.
High Rise Donkey (1980, 56 mins): in this Children’s Film Foundation adventure, three children who live in a high-rise tower block try to save a donkey from two small-time crooks
UK trailer
Other extras TBC
**FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet with new essays by Michael Brooke, Ewa Mazierska and the BFI’s Vic Pratt and full film credits

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: EO

#9 Post by knives » Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:20 pm

The Narrator Returns wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:53 pm
Skolimowski leaves most of the abuse the donkey suffers off-screen, but not showing it barely makes a difference in how visceral it ends up being. I'm thinking especially of
SpoilerShow
a scene where a group of soccer hooligans corner the donkey and beat him close to death, even as it's quick and shot from the donkey's perspective, it would almost certainly be too much for someone with a strong sensitivity to animals being harmed.
Pardon me if I’m wrong, but from context I took them to be more than soccer hooligans and thought there was some sort of nationalistic bent to those characters. Regardless of if I’m right though I think they do a good job of illustrating one of my favorite parts of the film which was the way it uses inference against the human world making it seem so base in its behavior. Even just small stuff like the Jewish cemetery before the wolf scene creates this narrative on humans.

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MichaelB
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Re: EO

#10 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:55 am

I think you're reading far too much into a very straightforward situation where
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one team is perceived to have won unfairly because of EO's braying at a crucial moment, and the losing players decide to take out their collective frustration on the creature that they hold directly responsible.

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Ribs
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Re: EO

#11 Post by Ribs » Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:30 am

I don't think it's meant as a statement on the people at all or in response to the game or anything - it's just a very darkly funny and true moment of cruelty for no purpose but to inflict cruelty.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: EO

#12 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:48 am

Well there's always a purpose/reason for all behavior, at minimum being initiated by certain reactive parts of our psyches, which can come off as "purposeless" to the naked eye. A lot of the film's best scenes seem to represent that, regardless of these 'reasons', the consequences of harm nullify an inquisitive practice that might explore or endorse their value. So in essence they are without purpose because next to EO's negated dignity and worth, screw their purpose

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knives
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Re: EO

#13 Post by knives » Thu Mar 02, 2023 12:17 pm

For some reason I thought I saw some generic political signs before the match and that’s why I was making that connection.

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Re: EO

#14 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 02, 2023 1:12 pm

When I first watched Krzysztof Kieślowski's Blind Chance with no knowledge of the Polish language I was convinced that the banner being unfurled in the background as Bogusław Linda rushes frantically onto the platform to catch a train (repeated twice, thus increasing its apparent significance) was something political, but it turns out that I was reading far too much into the fact that it was red. Because when I rewatched the film much more recently, even my decidedly imperfect Polish could see that it merely said
SpoilerShow
WELCOME TO ŁÓDŹ
And similarly, the banners on display during the match in EO are doing no more than expressing support for the Zryw football team (a real one, as it turned out, albeit defunct for some time and revived purely for the film).
Ribs wrote:
Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:30 am
I don't think it's meant as a statement on the people at all or in response to the game or anything - it's just a very darkly funny and true moment of cruelty for no purpose but to inflict cruelty.
It absolutely is a response to the game, and there's no doubt about this at all. There's a scuffle on the pitch as soon as the final whistle is blown, with the rival players protesting that they've been cheated, and one of the loudest protesters is a shaven-headed man wearing a distinctive T-shirt. That same man is the one seen wielding the baseball bat outside the bar later on. Someone who's only seen the film once is forgiven for not making the connection, but it really is completely clear on a second viewing - indeed, I'd argue that the distinctiveness of the T-shirt is in part because Skolimowski wanted to make it as easy as possible for us to recognise him later on, with the white-on-black design helpfully standing out both in daylight and after dark.

So, far from being an act of "cruelty for no purpose", I'd argue that Skolimowski is exploring a rather subtler concept (which of course relates to much else in the film), which is that it's an act of targeted revenge being meted out directly to what is perceived to be the instigator of an "unfair" result, the twist being that the instigator in question, although technically "guilty", cannot possibly have committed the "crime" with the intention of rigging a football result, and it's the latter that he's being punished for.

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knives
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Re: EO

#15 Post by knives » Sun Mar 05, 2023 9:15 am

Thanks for that. Criterion translated some of the signage with stuff about anarchy being mentioned, but it sounds like from you they’re just futbol slogans.

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