Donkeyote is being presented as part of the AFI Docs Film Festival 2017. Visit the official site for more information.
Manolo Molera is a 73-year old Spaniard who decides that he wants to do a pilgrimage walk in the United States. He will traverse the Trail of Tears, the route followed by 20,000 members of the Cherokee nation after they were evicted from their ancestral homelands in 1830. His two daughters are very supportive of this journey. But Paca, the younger one, is quite apprehensive of his safety since he has a bad knee and a heart condition.
Manolo plans to take his two closest companions with him on the walk: his beloved donkey Gorrión ("Sparrow") and his faithful dog Zafrana. He is very close to these two animals; they have had many adventures together. They often have gone hiking in the woods, eating, sleeping, and walking together.
The first leg of the journey involves going to a port in Spain to arrange for transport for the three of them across the ocean. What kind of world does Manolo find along the way? First there are many fences that have been constructed to keep strangers out of fields and pathways. Along with cars and trucks on the highways, the threesome must deal with a large herd of sheep clogging a road.
In one of the most humorous scenes in the film, they come to a small bridge over a creek and Gorrión stops and refuses to cross over. Manolo stands helplessly on the other side, trying to coax the donkey to come over. He even sends Zafrana back to encourage him. This scene is repeated later with an even larger bridge and a ramp to a boat. Manolo displays remarkable patience for his stubborn donkey, a sign of his genuine care and even compassion for what Gorrión is feeling. The director helps us share his feelings, often shooting closeups of the donkey and giving us his perspective on things.
In the end, Manolo has to decide whether his desire to make the walk in America is worth the indignities he, Gorrión, and Zafrana will suffer in order to get there. In the last scene of this appropriately slow-moving drama, the director shows the three figures walking together as Manolo sings a song he has composed. He notes that they have been "perfectly documented."