From the very beginning Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest film, an homage to Robert Bresson’s 1966 drama, “Au Hasard Balthazar,” is difficult to watch. It turns out this anxiety is warranted. As we follow the beloved circus donkey Eo — trained to play dead until revived by the pantomime of life-saving measures — as he canters into ever more desperate circumstances ending with the lingering sound of the slaughterhouse bolt pistol, Slolimowski turns what could have been a heartbreaking yet sweet fable into a sweeping treatise on the ways humans inflict cruelty on animals, with motives both malicious and indifferent. The erratic use of flashing red lights and a cameo by inscrutable French actress Isabelle Huppert further confuse the storytelling.
Cruelty depicted on-screen is only a fraction of the cruelty in the world, Skolimowski wants to repeatedly remind us. Anyone inclined to buy a ticket to a film in which a nonspeaking animal plays the main role is probably already distressed by this notion. Is it so wrong, then, to hope for a happy ending for at least one donkey this year, especially one already trained to come back to life?