EO Jerzy Skolimowski (Pol; 2022) Sandra Drzymalska, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz
viewed Tyneside Cinema 11 Feb 2023; ticket: £10.25
now you see it
Jerzy Skolimowski’s ‘EO’ is a contemporary re- realising of Robert Bresson’s ‘Au Hazard Balthazar’.
In ‘Au Hazard Balthazar’ Bresson uses a donkey named Balthazar as device to enable him show something about human relations, to say something about the human soul. Bresson in a fashion posits Balthazar as being a creature in a state of grace, subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. As he is passed from hand to hand in rural France we see before us ordinary everyday human behaviour: the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad, the violent and the tender. Balthazar is a touchstone for the cruelty and love endemic in human-animal interaction, and also a prism for us to see human relations laid bare, to see something of the fullness and emptiness of the human soul. When Balthazar dies, it is not through any direct act of malice or cruelty, but rather the accidental outcome of an act of human selfishness.
Skolimowski’s ‘EO’ develops the idea of ‘Balthazar’ as an invention who allows us to see things. Skolimowski’s opening shot is of the circus ring. The circus has become an emblematic symbol of the mistreatment of animals: where they are caged, tormented, reduced to living as spectacles for human amusement: but they do have a role. In accord with the times the circus folds; the animals including EO are sold off or sent to the knackers; what use does a modern society have for these creatures? For EO there is still some marginal use to which he can be put: traditional donkey work. But mostly he exists as a token a tolerated anomaly, occasionally useful. As he escapes is captured/re-captured, set free wanders across the asphalt of industrialised European landscape, EO is an animal out of time in an alien place. Rather like ourselves.
Bresson made ‘Balthazar’ in an era when Western society was still characterised by proximate relations between sentient beings, whether they were animal or human. Skolimowski is making his film when these relations are no longer so dominant in Western society. Of course interactions between EO and humans still have a significance; but Skolimowski’s donkey is a medium, a kindred being allowing us to open our eyes to the kinds of relations that shape our society: the relations between humans and their environment, humans and their technology.
It’s a moment of truth for an individual when the scales fall from their eyes and they see themselves as others see them. Through the eyes of EO we see something of ourselves, something of the world we have built. What characterises EO’s experience is the constricted point of view. In ‘EO’ this is often a travelling shot from a vehicle as EO is moved from place to place or the cropped views visible to him from out of the stalls in which he is housed. These all point to the existence of a world without vistas, a world that doesn’t open up to us. It’s a world where everything is framed or truncated. And there is something in the way EO is constrained to see the world that resembles how we also have come to see the world. Mostly it’s a world that is viewed through contemporary impedimenta such as the car window or a world seen through the framing of the screen. From whatever portal we might look out at the world, it is now often a world from which physically we are cut off. But so habituated are we to the restricted nature of what we can see, we are no longer aware of how limited our field of vision has become.
In relation to the built environment that surrounds us there is another aspect which the presence EO brings into focus. Through EO’s eyes we see the extent to which we are alienated from the structures that make possible much of our daily life; or perhaps better to say there is ‘distance’ now between us and strategic industrial parts of the environment we have created.
We no longer move into the world, we move across the surface of the world: on roads and highways, motorways, autostrada. When we move in the ‘natural world’, we can merge with it become part of it, part of originary creation. Travelling on asphalt concrete and tarmac we move across surfaces that resist us. We can never be part of this world even though we have created it. There is one sequence where EO crosses a bridge built next to what looks like a hydro-electric scheme. It’s a vast structure built for the management of a river. It is huge and violent with its cascading churning water, terrifying in its non-human scale which defies our immediate apprehension. Surely it is not a human construction – rather an enterprise of Gods? We inhabit a world where its impossible for us to relate to the vast infrastructure systems that sustain our lives: they exist simply for us to use not to understand. In this sense the modern world reduces us to an ‘animal’ level of consciousness, we like them use and exploit without comprehension. ‘EO’ draws us into an animal ‘being in the world’, a simpler mode of being enabling us to see how distanced we are from the most significant technological emanations of our civilisation.
Music tracks on film are mostly used to either reinforce or exploit emotional or emotive content. Skolimowski’s ambition for his music track in ‘EO’ is altogether different: his sound track is construed as an input discretely separate from that of his images. Skolimowski’s tracks have their own logic creating a world of suggestions moods and possibilities that run parallel to the picture but are never reduced to a mere supportive function. The sound/music fills out and extends. Skolimowski’s sound is in a continually changing relationship to the picture: sometimes conjoined to image sometime creating soundscapes that exist in their own right independent of what we are seeing, encircling penetrating expanding the thematic content of the film.
Balthazar and EO are donkeys, the main characteristic of their animal presence is their facial inscrutability. Neither Bresson nor Skolimowsi resort to tricks that might endow them with anthropomorphic expressive qualities: we are at the opposite end of the horrific Disney spectrum. As filmed the donkeys main features are their eyes, which is apposite in these films which are about seeing ourselves. The donkeys are links, the links to ourselves.
adrin neatrour
adrinuk@yahoo.co.uk
him show something about human relations, to say something about the human soul. Bresson in a fashion posits Balthazar as being a creature in a state of grace, subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. As he is passed from hand to hand in rural France we see before us ordinary everyday human interaction: the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad, the violent and the tender. Balthazar is a touchstone for the cruelty and love endemic in human-animal interaction, and also a prism for us to see human relations laid bare, to see something of the fullness and emptiness of the human soul. When Balthazar dies, it is not through any direct act of malice or cruelty, but rather the accidental outcome of an act of human selfishness.
Skolimowski’s ‘EO’ develops the idea of Balthazar as an entity who allows us to see things. Skolimowski’s opening shot is of the circus ring. The circus has become an emblematic symbol of the mistreatment of animals: where they are caged, tormented, reduced to living as spectacles for human amusement. In accord with the times the circus folds, the animals including EO are sold off or sent to the knackers; what use does a modern society have for these creatures? For EO there is still some marginal use to which he can be put: traditional donkey work. But mostly he exists as a token a tolerated anomaly, occasionally useful. EO, as he escapes is captured/re-captured, set free, wanders across the asphalt industrialised European landscape, is an animal out of time in an alien place, perhaps rather like ourselves.
Bresson made ‘Balthazar’ in an era when Western society was still characterised by proximate relations between sentient beings, whether they were animal or human. Skolimowski is making his film when these relations are no longer so dominant in Western society. Of course interactions between EO and humans still have a significance; but Skolimowski’s donkey is a medium, an analogous device for us to see anew of kinds of relations that now shape the society we live in: the relations between humans and their environment, humans and their technology. Skolimowski’s film allows us to see where and how we live through the eyes of EO.
It’s a moment of truth for an individual when the scales fall from their eyes and they see themselves as others see them. Through the eyes of EO we see something of ourselves, something of the world we have built. What characterises EO’s experience is the constricted point of view. In ‘EO’ this is often a travelling shot from a vehicle as EO is moved from place to place or the cropped views visible to him from out of the stalls in which he is housed. These all point to the existence of a world without vistas, a world that doesn’t open up to us. It’s a world where everything is framed or truncated. And there is something in the way EO is constrained to see the world that resembles how we also have come to see the world. Mostly it’s a world that is viewed through contemporary impedimenta such as the car window or a world seen through the framing of the screen. From whatever portal we might look out at the world, it is now often a world from which physically we are cut off. But so habituated are we to the delimitation and restricted nature of what we can see, we are no longer aware of how limited our field of vision has become.
In relation to the built environment that surrounds us there is another aspect which the presence EO brings into focus. Through EO’s eyes we see the extent to which we are alienated from the structures that make possible much of our daily life; or perhaps better to say there is ‘distance’ now between us and strategic industrial parts of the environment we have created. We no longer move into the world, we move across the surface of the world: on roads and highways, motorways, autostrada. When we move in the ‘natural world’, we can merge with it become part of it, part of originary creation. Travelling on asphalt concrete and tarmac we move across surfaces that resist us. We can never be part of this world even though we have created it.
There is one sequence where EO crosses a bridge built next to what looks like a hydro-electric scheme. It’s a vast structure built for the management of a river. It is huge and violent with its cascading churning water, terrifying in its non-human scale which defies our immediate apprehension. Surely it is not a human construction – rather an enterprise of Gods? We inhabit a world where its impossible for us to relate to the vast infrastructure systems that sustain our lives: they exist simply for us to use not to understand. In this sense the modern world reduces us to an ‘animal’ level of consciousness, we like them use and exploit without comprehension. ‘EO’ draws us into an animal ‘being in the world’, a simpler mode of being enabling us to see how distanced we are from the most significant technological emanations of our civilisation.
Music tracks on film are mostly used to either reinforce or exploit emotional or emotive content. Skolimowski’s ambition for his music track in ‘EO’ is altogether different: his sound track is construed as an entity separate from that of his images. Skolimowski’s tracks have their own logic creating a world of suggestions moods and possibilities that run parallel to the picture but are never reduced to a mere supportive function. The sound/music fills out and extends. Skolimowski’s sound is in a continually changing relationship to the picture: sometimes conjoined to image sometime creating soundscapes that exist in their own right independent of what we are seeing, encircling penetrating the thematic content of the film.
Balthazar and EO are donkeys and the main characteristic of their animal presence is their facial inscrutability. Neither Bresson nor Skolimowsi resort to tricks that might endow them with anthropomorphic expressive qualities: we are at the opposite end of the horrific Disney spectrum. As filmed the donkeys main features are their eyes, which is apposite in these films which are about seeing ourselves. The donkeys are links, the links to ourselves.
adrin neatrour
adrinuk@yahoo.co.uk
