EO is small and typical—the kind of animal that looks pretty after getting to know him, but might not stand out in a stable full of donkeys. He would have been a model for the wise inpartnerMovies. When Skolimowski was the cinematographer Michael Dimick Shoot it in tight close-ups—sometimes so narrow that an old, square film frame could barely contain the graceful line of an EO's head in profile, and one eye looming—dead center—you get a flash of what could be wisdom. But that's just you the viewer, the way you might while visiting a farm or zoo.
The filmmakers are determined to keep EO a mystery and let him be an animal. We don't really know why he's doing or not doing things at any given moment. Even when his trainer spots him, aids him briefly and then leaves and appears to pursue her, there is no indication of what the EO can expect or hope to achieve, let alone the likelihood of success. He travels down a road and then stops, and more things happen.
But there isn't always a clear inner logic to scenes and set pieces, and that can make parts of "EO" seem less cohesive, if stripped, than the narrative of the highlight reel's clever cinematographic techniques, including boastful acrobatic drone shots high above. countryside, monochrome filters (evoking the last installment of "2001: A Space Odyssey") and first-person "trick shots" in which cameras were attached to machinery and other moving objects. Some of these photos are really beautiful, even weird. But others (including an early brief sequence in a stable) veer towards the glamorous beauty of a fashion magazine. And there are times when the film's focus on bold colors and striking angles (such as a very low-angle shot of a robotic "dog" meandering through grass and across muddy dirt roads) comes to the detriment or neglect of EO. It's not enough to completely derail a movie, but one might want a little more aesthetic clarity from time to time.
One of the most disturbing scenes in the movie is the EO chewing the grass outside a nightclub somewhere in the country when thugs with baseball bats pull into cars, invade the club, beat up and scare customers, then come back out to drive away into the night. Someone in one of the cars notices EO at the edge of the parking lot, and they all climb out of the car and beat him up as well, with the camera simulating a first-person view of EO as blows rain down on him. Why wasn't the EO turned on the second the cars stopped and the guys walked out screaming angrily? These and other moments make it seem as if dramatic force has eclipsed practical or logical considerations.
Source link
0 Comments