The Ghost Goes West (1935) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch British Film, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance Venice Film Festival, 1936- Official Selection National Board of Review, 1936- Winner: Top Foreign Films When French director René Clair crossed the English Channel to make his first British film, nobody quite expected him to deliver a comedy that would feel so undeniably American in its spirit. The result was The Ghost Goes West , a delightful 1935 satirical fantasy that took a gentle, witty jab at the clash between old-world Scottish tradition and new-world American commercialism. More on Wikipedia or Mubi A Ghost That Conquered America The story kicks off in the rugged, misty highlands of Scotland, where Murdoch Glourie, a dashing but somewhat cowardly 18th-century Scotsman, dies in a ridiculous explosion of gunpowder. Because he failed to avenge an insult to his family name, Murdoch is doomed to haunt his ancestral castle until he can find a w...
The film premiered in competition at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2022, where it won the Jury Prize, tying with The Eight Mountains. Submitted by Poland, EO was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
🎼 Soundtrack & music
The original soundtrack, composed by Pawel Mykietyn, was released September 30, 2022, via Milan Records
It includes 19 tracks, spanning about 48–49 minutes, featuring evocative titles like "The Beginning", "After the Circus", "Wolves, Lasers", "Tunnel", "White Horse", "Love Story", and "Tribute to Donkey"
Notable performances include Mykietyn’s own compositions and works like the 2nd Cello Concerto by Mykietyn played by Marcel Markowski, and "Diabolique" by Tomasz Orángek
The soundtrack is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and other digital platforms .
Additional album details (label, catalogue number, audio formats) are available via Milan and Presto Classical.
Why the music stands out
The score plays a central role in giving voice to EO’s perspective—underscoring the donkey’s emotional and psychological journey.
Tracks like “Tunnel” and “Tribute to Donkey” elegantly frame key moments of isolation, wonder, suffering, and resilience.
Mykietyn’s orchestration alternates between sparse, haunting melodies and more intense, rhythmic pieces (“Wolves, Lasers”) to reflect EO's shifting experiences.
🎬 Film significance
EO continues Skolimowski’s experimental storytelling, this time adopting an animal protagonist to bypass conventional dialogue and narrative forms.
The film uses EO’s journey—shot with alternating objective and donkey-point-of-view techniques—to comment on humanity’s contradictions: kindness vs. cruelty, innocence vs. exploitation.
Besides being a cinematic meditation, EO sparked conversations about animal empathy, and reportedly even influenced vegetarian choices among the cast and crew.
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