Gloire aux ânes
Les Aventures d'un animal prolétaire
Maryse Bergonzat
2000 - 79 min - Couleur - France, Allemagne

The fate of donkeys, companions of man at work, is a curious one. Domesticated, they were used to make war, an aristocratic task if ever there was one. But relatively quickly they were replaced by horses, which were faster. So they remained on farms, ploughing and making mills work. It is quite an ordinary existence in the service of modest people. Donkeys give very little milk, they are not eaten much, and sweaters are not knitted from their hair.
So work remains, an uncommon capacity for work, which makes them proletarian animals sharing closely the misery and troubles of men. Add to that a gentleness and a simplicity (stupidity ? Deep thought ?) and an unreasonable sexuality...
The film follows two "threads" : real donkeys filmed in situations with their human companions in the French countryside and, as a counterbalance, metaphorical and literary donkeys which are treated in the form of animated cartoons.