EO (2022)

EO is special because it asks you to see the world without the usual human armor—through the wide, searching eyes of a donkey—and somehow makes that perspective feel vast, poetic, and urgently alive. Jerzy Skolimowski turns a simple journey into a drifting, dreamlike adventure, where luminous images and bold visual ideas do the storytelling as much as dialogue, and every stop along the road reveals something tender or troubling about the people who pass through EO’s life. It’s emotionally disarming in the way it builds empathy without pleading for it, letting moments of beauty and sudden cruelty sit side by side until they feel hauntingly true. Fair warning: it can be intense and occasionally upsetting, but if you’re open to a film that’s more like a spell than a conventional narrative, EO is the kind of experience that lingers long after the screen goes dark.

EO is clearly trying to make you see humanity’s chaos through a donkey’s quiet, innocent gaze, and when it works it’s haunting and oddly tender. The problem is it’s built like a chain of episodes rather than a story with momentum, so if you need clear narrative goals and payoff, you may feel like you’re watching beautifully shot detours. Skolimowski’s stylized visuals and sensory flourishes can be striking, but they sometimes pull focus from EO instead of deepening him, which can make the film feel more like an art installation than an emotional journey. Also, be warned it doesn’t flinch from animal suffering and bleakness, so if you’re sensitive to that or want catharsis, this may just leave you drained rather than moved.