The animal that see us

notes on the dialogue of Bresson and Skolimowski

Abstract

The article brings together two cinematographic productions, Au hasard Balthazar (1966), by Robert Bresson, and EO (2022), by Jerzy Skolimowski, based on the possible influence that the first work has on the second one. Both films intersect due to the proposal to centralize an animal, precisely a donkey, as the protagonist of the narratives, which are given the ability to face both the fable itself and the spectators of the films. The contact between animal and audience, intermediated by the proposals of both directors, opens space for philosophical debates by Berger (1980) and Derrida (2002), in which the definition of what the modern individual is, is raised from the perspective of another, a limited alterity: the animal. In addition, it will be studied how films contribute to the tension between the line that separates human nature from the animalized world, as well as the capacity of the aesthetic experience of cinema to blur it.