Experiencing events through the eyes of an animal is not exactly new cinematic terrain and it’s proved a mixed bag recently. 2014’s White God stands apart from saccharine canine dramas like A Dog’s Purpose, while Andrea Arnold’s 2021 documentary Cow offers a devastating perspective on dairy farming. On the other hand, the 2020 reboot of Black Beauty turned out naff and unintentionally comic, with Kate Winslet overegging it as the voice of the titular horse. In EO, veteran Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski (Deep End, Le Départ) takes inspiration from a classic of the sub-genre, Robert Bresson’s 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar, the only film to ever move him to tears.

Plumping for a donkey as the film’s four-legged friend is a wise choice: these melancholic-looking beasts make easy-to-empathise-with protagonists. Apart from a couple of outbursts of his own, EO is the largely quiet and forlorn centre of a swirling storm of human flaws. We meet him in the midst of an intense circus act, performed in collaboration with his beloved trainer Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), who tends to him adoringly afterwards.

A crackdown on animal performers has the unfortunate consequence of separating the pair, with EO transported to swish new stables, before an incident causes him to be rehoused on a farm. And that’s only the beginning of a whirlwind adventure for the creature, as he’s befriended by chaotic football fans, finds himself plunged into a crime scene, and adjacent to a tempestuous, semi-incestuous relationship between a countess and her lapsed priest stepson (played by Isabelle Huppert and Lorenzo Zurzolo).

The incidents EO ends up in close proximity to are intriguing snippets of life but the overall experience of journeying alongside the animal justifies the brevity of each interlude. It’s not strictly a donkey’s-eye-view of events, but it is highly immersive, encouraging identification with the endearing EO rather than those around him. Shot with audacity by cinematographer Michal Dymek, the film has the soaring and majestic, yet interrogatory visual style associated with directors like Terrence Malick or Post Tenebras Lux’s Carlos Reygadas. Dymek and Skolimowski depict the landscapes in a dynamic manner, bringing out their daunting and overwhelming qualities, and ratcheting up the tension in anxious and perilous episodes. The skill of their execution has landed the film an Oscar nod and it undoubtedly makes for a wild donkey ride.

EO is in cinemas from Friday 3 February.