E O

On Friday afternoons I walk up to campus to watch movies. The first week of this term we watched "Air," a movie about the Nike company coming up with a new shoe for Michael Jordan. That was an interesting film which is more about the Nike company than the Jordan family. Last week we watched "Navalny," a film about Alexey Navalny that he and his crew filmed. Watching him head to a city in Siberia where he was poisoned was very interesting. The best part was watching him call three people involved in executing his poisoning while pretending to be a member of the government and hearing the scientist explain how they put the potent poison in the seams of his underwear. The hard part was watching him leave Germany and return to Russia where he knows he is going to be arrested but he does it anyway. Today we watched E O, a film set in Poland and Italy. This film is about a donkey but is definitely not for children. E O is a circus donkey. Animal rights activists are protesting the use of animals in circuses so E O is taken away. E O and his circus trainer, Kassandra, have a very close relationship. The time with Kassandra seems to be the happiest years of E O's life. He is taken to a donkey sanctuary. On his birthday Kassandra comes to visit him bringing him a carrot cupcake. But then she leaves. E O watches her leave on a motorbike so he breaks the gate and takes off after her. He walks through the beautiful forest. The scenery is incredible. Many times the director floods the screen with red and when the forest is red it looks like it is on fire. E O continues his travels never staying very long and still remembering Kassandra. He meets humans who are kind and humans who are cruel. The director, 84 year old Jerzey Skolimowski, is an animal rights activist. The movie was entertaining and disturbing.