In traditional depictions of the Nativity, an ox and a donkey accompany Joseph, Mary, the three Magi, and the newborn Jesus. I has been said that Mary entered Bethlehem on a donkey, as these animals were a common mode of transportation for the poor at the time. In the nativity, the donkey looks on blankly, perhaps a witness (or a representative?) of humanity at large. Such is our relationship with beasts of burden: tools used for granted and rarely considered as fellow creatures of the earth, creatures whose sentience (and by extension, agency) is unclear and/or taken for granted. Nativity imagery abounds in Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), about a donkey who is given to multiple owners, a film about which Godard said, "is really the world in an hour and a half."
Jerzy Skolimowski's EO follows the same basic idea as Bresson's film, but does away with the spiritual imagery for the most part. It, however, delivers no less of an experience with its simple, minimalist aesthetic. A moviegoer related that it feels like if Malick made Tree of Life with donkeys, and I kind of understand where they're coming from.
Eo's titular character is a donkey working in a circus. One day, the circus gets borked and EO gets repossessed and sold to a different owner. Eo then goes through a journey going from one person to another, with short vignettes about the circumstances of the humans he comes across or is otherwise involved with. Sometimes those humans can be kind, some can be unbelievably cruel. Some treat EO kindly but have issues of their own or among fellow humans. This isn't Hollywood; Eo's not voiced by Chris Pratt or some other celebrity to give him an inner voice. Aside for some glimpses of a human who treated him kindly in the circus, we don't really know what Eo thinks - we merely project our own thoughts and desires onto him. Much like Godard's assessment of Bresson's film, Eo shows humanity as it is, holy yet savage, living contradictions, and deep down, animals all the same.
In Alice Diop's stunning narrative fiction debut, Saint Omer takes us into the proceedings of a trial involving Laurence (Guslangie Malanga), a French Senegalese woman accused of a horrible crime. It is fiction based on reality, as Diop based the movie on her own experiences attending the trial of Fabienne Kabou, who was accused of the same crime.
Diop's avatar is the pregnant novelist Kame (Kayije Kagame,) who intends to write about her experiences here. The film is framed mostly austerely, with each witness testifying and relating their experiences. Laurence's testimony is erratic, making it hard for the audience to understand her situation. But we find that the circumstances behind the crime are horrifying to most involved: as the film goes on it is quite clear that Laurence wasn't treated well by her partner, and she breaks mentally under the stress. This perhaps is also Diop's intent: as a documentary filmmaker, she needs to understand her subjects in order to create her films, but the process of empathy is not as simple as one may think. To create empathy, people often draw on their own past experiences; there are parallels to Rama's relationship with her mother and her identity as the child of an immigrant to Laurence's situation.
The way the film is shot frames not only the subject, but us as well: as the audience, we too judge Laurence on her words and actions. Saint Omer is many things: an exploration of women, the relationships that shape, bind and destroy them, and a reflexive look at the art of filmmaking. Diop also interrogates the process of observation itself, and how in the process of understanding someone else, we reveal our own prejudices to the world.
Like the previous film I discussed in this slate of reviews, Plan 75 is also based on horrific, true events: in 2016, a man killed 19 people in a care home in Sagamihara. His main motivation for the attack was the idea that the elderly and disabled were a drain on society. This film begins with a fictionalized version of that attack and a curious question: what if some of the killer's ideas were institutionalized?
In the not so near future, Japan institutes Plan 75, where people of that age or older can opt for assisted suicide. The plan by itself isn't inherently bad (other countries have instituted similar options) but it is in the implementation and details where the problem lies. Astute viewers might already have made the connection between the program and the mythical practice of ubasute, where the elderly are left by their children on a mountain to die so that they would no longer be a burden to the family. Although framed by its architects as a noble, dignified act of sacrifice for the good of the many, the way the dead are treated afterwards makes it feel more like unfeeling, commodified senicide.
Michi (Chieko Baisho) is a recently retired hotel worker. While the oft repeated mantra is that Plan 75 is optional, various social circumstances, attitudes of Japanese society (or at least this particular version of it) and her own intense loneliness push Michi to consider the program. Her thread is one of many that explore the ins and outs of the Plan 75 program: Hiromu (Hayato Isomura) is a kind of salesman who gets people to sign into Plan 75 who is suddenly met by his long lost uncle (Takao Taka) who wants to join the program, while Maria (Stefanie Arianne) is a Filipino caregiver who shifts work to the program in order to pay for her daughter's surgery.
Plan 75 explores the question of the value of one's life, and how individuals act on that perceived self-worth. It also shows how the societal systems we create influence that self-value. It's clear that not all of the elderly people in the film want to die, but are made to do so because they have no choice either way. Michi considers several alternatives to live or work after her retirement, but any social welfare opportunities for people like her are getting scarce. Her support system is virtually non existent, as most of her friends are either dead or unable to help her. Whether intentionally or not, people like Michi are left with no choice.
Things all throughout are pretty bleak, but there is a sense of fierce determination at the end, that every life has its worth, that while some choose to end it all, some choose to live on to see the sun rise one more day.
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