Au Hasard Balthazar
1966 Directed by Robert Bresson
Synopsis
The sad life and death of Balthazar, a donkey, from an idyllic childhood surrounded by loving children, through adulthood as a downtrodden beast of burden. His life is paralleled with that of the girl who named him, and as she is humiliated by her sadistic lover, so he is beaten by his owner. But he finds a kind of peace when he is employed by an old miller who thinks he is a reincarnated saint... Written by Michael Brooke
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A very slow, very moving take on the burden that is life, Bresson's classic assigns a good deal of its audiences' sympathies to the simple eyes of a donkey. In the hands of a great director he makes for a brilliant protagonist, and that's exactly what Bresson proves himself (this is my first of his). There's a particularly majestic scene that sees our hero exchanging glances with a series of caged circus animals; it's impossible to describe with words just how much it affects you. Bresson has the ability to imbue his scenes with remarkably underscored meaning, from the emotional intensity behind every glance to the many religious parallels the story draws. I'm not sure I was quite as open to it as I should have been—certainly a fault of my mood rather than the film—but the achievement here is undeniably stunning.
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I find it interesting that the frustrations that recently threatened to crush my initial astonishment at the brilliance of Bresson’s ability to elicit emotion out of me with just the barest of stimuli seem also to have broken something in the director himself. His oppressive stillness and stoicism, which worked so effectively in Diary of a Country Priest and A Man Escaped seemed to have taken on a life of their own and by the time he brought them to bear on his two following films, Pickpocket and The Trial of Joan of Arc, they threatened to bury the emotional intensity of his work. (And yes, I realise that this is a contentious position).
All of these films deal directly…
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"Au Hasard Balthazar" explores the unfathomable cruelty of human existence and the cowardice that creates a failure to love. And yet at the same time, this film, which reveals everything I care to know of evil, seems to spring forth from a boundless well of empathy within its creator.
This is the work of a truly great artist, perhaps the great film artist. I cannot imagine watching it and coming away unchanged.
"Besides, he's a saint."
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Masterpiece. Go watch it now.
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Godard once said that Au Hasard Bathazar, Bresson's fascinating allegorical study of spiritual transcendence, is "the world in an hour and a half." I think that's a fitting description. Perhaps only Bresson can take a tragic story about a donkey and within it find the story of Christ, but all be damned if he doesn't pull it off to miraculous effect. This film can be interrupted many different ways, but for me, Balthazar is Bresson's inspiring reassurance of the existence of God by the lack of even the slightest miracle or good fortune. What is not seen, the saving grace, is made more real and believable in its absence. The story, that of a donkey's life, is, on the surface,…
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Au Hasard Balthazar explores a number of themes concerning spirituality, but the one most prevalent is the idea of bearing witness. In the film the donkey Balthazar is the mute witness, incapable of intervening in the cruelty taking place around him (and to him) he can only observe. Bresson uses deploys cinematic techniques generally reserved for revealing the human psyche, such as the Kuleshov Effect, to cause the viewer to read human emotions onto the donkey. Religious imagery is prevalent throughout the film, beginning with Balthazar's baptism by Jaques and Marie, and in some ways the film can be read as a hagiography of the donkey. Still, I feel another apt comparison for Balthazar is with the concept of a…
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I was lucky that I watched Mouchette and this one back to back and I could feel the impact that Bresson carries. This is a magnificent, gorgeous piece of art centered around a Schubert sonata. A movie that expects a lot from it's viewers and gives back much more.
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I was a 22 year old film student when I saw this film and wrote a thesis paper about Bresson for a passing grade.
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The best film I have seen to date
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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I find it interesting that the frustrations that recently threatened to crush my initial astonishment at the brilliance of Bresson’s ability to elicit emotion out of me with just the barest of stimuli seem also to have broken something in the director himself. His oppressive stillness and stoicism, which worked so effectively in Diary of a Country Priest and A Man Escaped seemed to have taken on a life of their own and by the time he brought them to bear on his two following films, Pickpocket and The Trial of Joan of Arc, they threatened to bury the emotional intensity of his work. (And yes, I realise that this is a contentious position).
All of these films deal directly…
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Bresson's spiritual tale about the life and times of a small-town donkey is a sorrowful but totally rewarding movie experience. I'm a sucker for the director, for the cinematic animal and for post-war French cinema, so perhaps I was bound to like this. It'd be interesting to see it in a double-bill with The Turin Horse. That'd be one sad evening.
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"Au Hasard Balthazar" explores the unfathomable cruelty of human existence and the cowardice that creates a failure to love. And yet at the same time, this film, which reveals everything I care to know of evil, seems to spring forth from a boundless well of empathy within its creator.
This is the work of a truly great artist, perhaps the great film artist. I cannot imagine watching it and coming away unchanged.
"Besides, he's a saint."
-
Au Hasard Balthazar explores a number of themes concerning spirituality, but the one most prevalent is the idea of bearing witness. In the film the donkey Balthazar is the mute witness, incapable of intervening in the cruelty taking place around him (and to him) he can only observe. Bresson uses deploys cinematic techniques generally reserved for revealing the human psyche, such as the Kuleshov Effect, to cause the viewer to read human emotions onto the donkey. Religious imagery is prevalent throughout the film, beginning with Balthazar's baptism by Jaques and Marie, and in some ways the film can be read as a hagiography of the donkey. Still, I feel another apt comparison for Balthazar is with the concept of a…
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Duro retrato de la maldad humana a través de los ojos de un burito. Para verla una vez.
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Harsh portrait of human capacity for evil through the eyes of a little donkey. To watch once.