A version of this story first appeared in the international problem from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski made his first film in 1960, but his new “EO” was one of the freshest and most adventurous films to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The central character is a wandering donkey who goes on a road trip across Europe and has adventures that can be enchanting, terrifying, and heartbreaking. But “EO” doesn’t sit back and watch its protagonist; instead, Skolimowski uses drones, effects, and jarring sound design to put viewers on the donkey’s head.
He spoke to TheWrap through a translator.
When her film premiered at Cannes, many people commented that she had audacity and youthful energy. At 84, do you feel like a young filmmaker?
No, I am fully aware of my age and my limits. But I’m glad the film is taken this way. The difference between this film and my previous films is the fact that I really pushed my collaborators to have as much impact as possible on the film. On previous occasions I was much more selfish and inclined towards my own ideas. Here I was really trying to get (information) from my composer, from my cinematographer, from my editor, from my co-writer. Maybe that youthful quality you mention is because my team’s average age is younger than mine.
Was there something in the material that made you want to push your collaborators?
I guess it’s the importance of the film’s overall message. The film is made out of love for animals and nature. And when choosing my collaborators, that was the most important criterion: their attitude towards animals. We were all animal lovers and we were trying to do something for those so-called little brothers that we are supposed to share this planet with in a much more democratic way than is done.
Unfortunately, humans abuse animals in sometimes very dramatic and cruel ways. I mean, things like industrial meat production is something humans should be ashamed of. This is a barbaric activity. And maybe those drastic, dramatic, macabre things could end eventually.
You saw Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar”, another film in which the protagonist is a donkey, back in 1966. Have you been thinking of doing your own version of that idea for a long time?
Not really, no, although the impact of the Robert Bresson film on my career was enormous. I was so moved by the death of the donkey that I just cried. Robert Bresson managed to reduce me from the cynical professional to the normal spectator; Robert Bresson showed me that the animal character can be much more moving for the public than any human character.
Any human character played by the actor, you know that whatever he plays, it will always be with the audience’s subconscious suspicion that it’s just an act, a performance. Moments later, the actor would return to his private life laughing and drinking, joking, and so on. Although the death of the donkey was real, I was deeply moved because I knew that animals cannot act. There is truth in the performance of an animal, which is not really a performance: it is them being natural.
When I was looking for a theme for the new film with my wife and co-writer/co-producer Ewa Piaskowska, we were both fed up with linear storytelling. Millions of movies were made this way, and audiences must be sick of the same three-act structure. So we were looking for a different one
way of narrating the film, and we decided that if we used the animal character in a main part, it would at least reduce the dialogue that is heard in the film. And the dialogues are always the weakest part of the movie, not only because they are often poorly written, but also because the actors’ performances are not always that good.
And purely by chance, during Christmas we were in Sicily and in the neighboring town there was a representation of a living nativity scene. The biggest attraction was the barn with Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus, and full of animals: chickens, geese, pigs, sheep, cows, all making an incredible noise. And I noticed in the far corner, away from all the other animals, there is a silent animal that doesn’t move, doesn’t make any sound. He was a donkey, with wide eyes watching what was happening. And I thought, I can tell my story through the eyes of a donkey.
In the way you shot the movie and in the sound design, you bring us to the point of view of the donkey. How is that accomplished?
Normally, I fix the scene and shoot it objectively using a so-called master shot that covers the whole situation. And then I focus on my main character, which is [the] Donkey. Whatever he does in the scene, I follow his every move. And I follow with the camera the same movements that I was photographing. And to my surprise, looking at the monitor on the set, I noticed a huge difference between my objective shots and the same situation shot as the donkey’s point of view. They had an added value, almost like being looked at by an alien, by someone from a different world. I understood that this is the strength of telling the story through the eyes of a donkey. Those might just be snippets, but because he’s a donkey who pays attention to certain details, he tells the whole story in a completely different way.
So what’s it like working with actor donkeys?
Sometimes the actors are very helpful, sometimes they are annoying because the actors tend to ask questions that are not necessary. But donkey doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t understand what the director wants him to do either. So, the working method is, first of all, to try to establish the link between the animal and the director. When the rest of the team was having lunch or making another drink, I spent some time with the donkey, establishing the fact that the animal and I have a special bond. (laughs) And, of course, I had my best weapon: carrots. In difficult times, carrots work miracles.
Read more of the international edition here.
