By Nathaniel Bell.
More important was the fact that I changed my attitude toward creation. I was enthusiastic again. Young, fresh, and ready for experiments and risks.”
–Jerzy Skolimowski
Au hasard Balthazar is the only film that made Jerzy Skolimowski cry. In 1966, having recently completed his second feature, the young Polish director was approached by the Cahiers du Cinéma for an interview. The magazine had selected Walkover, his spare drama about an amateur boxer, as its #2 movie of the year. “Which film is #1?” he asked. It was, of course, Bresson’s masterpiece of Christian existentialism about a sainted donkey. Skolimowski postponed his interview until he had an opportunity to see the picture. It struck his heart like no other film he had ever encountered.
More than five decades later, Skolimowski, now 84, has made a film that uses the central conceit of Balthazar as a jumping off point, spinning a picaresque yarn about a gentle beast of burden and his search for permanence in a world where love and cruelty, beauty and danger coexist in stark contrast. Having built a formidable career on movies about outsiders, from the alienated teenager in Deep End to the stranded jihadist in Essential Killing, Skolimowski has found his ultimate outsider protagonist in EO, a creature whose name suggests the haunting, braying call of an ass.
Whether viewed as a critique of the industrial ruin of the planet or a simple plea for kindness to animals, EO transcends the boundaries of social commentary to become a modern quest, a secular Pilgrim’s Progress. Co-written and co-produced by Skolimowski and his wife Ewa Piaskowska, this strange parable (now available from The Criterion Collection) has no equal in its radically empathetic treatment of a non-human subject. Taking a 180-degree turn from Bresson’s ascetic style, Skolimowski employs a variety of gripping techniques to invite subjectivity: bulging wide-angles of EO’s face, blurred edges of the Academy-ratio frame, flashbacks that grant access to the animal’s thought life, and most audaciously, a series of breathtaking drone movements against a blood-red sky. Shot over a period of two years due to pandemic conditions, the film showcases a wonderfully eclectic yet cohesive style that keeps the simple storyline bubbling with intensity.
I stole a few minutes with Skolimowski and Piaskowska on the occasion of their visit to Santa Monica, where the filmmakers were in town for an advance screening at the American Cinematheque.
Watching EO was a powerfully emotional experience. I imagine it had a similar effect on me as Au hasard Balthazar did on you when you first saw it as a young filmmaker.
Jerzy Skolimowski (JS): The last scene when Balthazar is dying, surrounded by a herd of sheep, with those little bells jingling around their necks. It’s a breathtaking scene. I was hopelessly overtaken by emotion. Bresson taught me the greatest lesson I ever learned in the cinema. The lesson was that an animal performer could give an even stronger effect than any great performance by an actor. Because there is always a bit of suspicion with actors. It’s only an act. But with animals it’s not an act. And with that knowledge, I decided to make a film with an animal in the leading role.
Bresson was a person of faith and brought a Christian sensibility to his film. There are a few moments in EO where I detected a hint of a religious consciousness as well. For instance, there’s an interesting scene in which EO travels through an old Jewish burial ground. Later on, when the young man (Lorenzo Zurzolo) is in priest’s vestments performing the Sacrament of the Eucharist for a woman who turns out to be his stepmother and lover (Isabelle Huppert), she answers her cell phone and walks out of the ceremony. It’s as if you’re commenting on the lack of spirituality in contemporary society.
Ewa Piaskowska (EP): Also, the devaluation of things that were always holy and pure.
JS: Exactly. And deserve full respect. With the example of the Jewish cemetery, we were obliged to shoot in South Poland. When scouting the locations in the area, one scout brought back photographs of an abandoned, dilapidated, very old cemetery of Jewish matzevot.
EP: It was an abandoned place, clearly, that was just left there.
JS: It was an interesting element just to show it. But at the same time, out of respect for the fact that it was a real cemetery, with real graves, we decided to recreate it, so our art director made artificial matzevot on the other side of the forest.
EP: It gives a historical, emotional landscape to the journey of this donkey which becomes like an odyssey. It enriches the journey.
I wonder if you could comment on the period in your life in which you became a dedicated painter. How did that change the way you make films?
JS: To be exact, I was a painter all my life. Once, I decided to stop filming because I was very unhappy with the results of my last couple of films. I thought that maybe it would be for a year or two, but we moved to California, and in California, time slows down… or speeds up. Or whatever. Instead of being two or three years it was 17 years. It was enough time to develop into a professional painter. I started to have exhibitions, selling the paintings. With that new attitude of a young artist developing his skills and having his first successes.
EO is very painterly. One might even call it impressionistic.
JS: It may have such an effect. More important was the fact that I changed my attitude toward creation. I was enthusiastic again. Young, fresh, and ready for experiments and risks. I rediscovered the joy of creating. That was the most important result of that period of developing myself as a painter.
The techniques that you use to help us empathize with the animals are excellent. The close-ups of the eyes, blurring the edges of the frame, using the Academy ratio, etc.
EP: We knew from the very beginning that we wanted to be as close as possible to this animal. That we wanted to tell the story through his point of view and that we do not want to just tell a story about a donkey. We want to be the donkey throughout the story.
JS: The difference between EO and the rest of my films is the fact that for the first time I really used the talents and abilities of my closest collaborators to the maximum. Before EO, I was always putting myself in front of the film. It was important to show my talent, my way of thinking. If I had brought this attitude which I have now, working on EO, the earlier films probably would have been better. For the first time, I really used the DP (Director of Photography) to the maximum. And by the way, the criterion which we used in choosing our cast and members of the crew was their attitude toward the animals. Our DP Michal Dymek wasn’t afraid of getting close to the donkeys to the point where they were almost touching the camera. My composer Paweł Mykietyn, whose input on the film is incredible, is a famous classical music composer known all around the world. I gave him only one remark which really became a key to the music. I said Pawel, my main character is not using any dialogue. He’s speechless. I want you to use every opportunity when you watch the film and feel the moment you can go with your music into the donkey’s head and produce his inner monologue and express his emotions and feelings. That would be the treasure of having you working on this film. And he did it!
EP: And the editor.
JS: Our editor, Agnieszka Glinska, really put all of her heart and talent into this and also had a great love for animals. All of the crew were animal lovers. It’s almost like we created a political party of animal lovers for this film.
It’s been said before, but EO feels like the work of a young filmmaker. Every frame is passionately alive. It’s refreshing to see a movie so wholly engaged, committed, and totally in love with its subject. I think it’s going to change a lot of people’s hearts.
JS: Thank you for those words. You must have noticed that the film was made out of love. Love for nature and animals. I hope it would have a result similar to what we experienced ourselves. We have both reduced our meat consumption. We are not vegetarians yet, but I hope one day soon we will become fully vegetarian. I hope at least some people would start to examine their real needs. Do you need to eat bacon every day? How about some cottage cheese?
EP: Of course, when we set out to make this film, we knew we wanted it to be emotional, but it’s another thing for you to have an idea of something and then actually hear that it touches people. It’s such a privilege and a joy for us to hear that people really responded. Our plan has basically materialized.
Nathaniel Bell is a Los Angeles based writer and educator whose work has appeared in LA Weekly, The Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He teaches film history at Biola University.