Au hasard Balthazar

A truly unique work in cinema. It is simply amazing that a story that is, on the surface, mostly about the life of a donkey can cause you to ponder the mysteries and ironies of life and fate. Bresson created here a model of how to say more with less. The final scene of this film is illustrative of this in its extraordinary ability to deeply move the viewer with only a bare minimum of directorial touch.

The plot lines of Au Hasard Balthazar at times seem forced, sometimes confusing the viewer, and often leaving the characters' motivations unexplained. This matters little, however, because they all follow the same theme that one's actions, explainable or not, are often just a reaction to the environment within which we are placed. The human characters and the donkey are one. Just as Balthazar must succumb to the whims of his owners, so are we humans often just surviving, and submitting to, the actions of those who control us. The film is in many ways a rumination about the free will actually afforded us in life. A key scene is between Marie and the miserly farmer (winemaker?), where the latter expounds upon his philosophy. Money and self-confidence are the keys for him because they allow a certain autonomy that lets him do as he pleases. Money, or the lack thereof, is depicted in several instances as often replacing true morality or spirituality in the characters' lives.

Another scene that mesmerizes (there are several) is when Balthazar is pulling the circus-animal feeding cart through the cage area. The soundless shots of the donkey making eye contact with the other animals is brilliantly done (again with little camera flourish). They seem to be communicating silently with only their gazes, which say "here we are, this is our fate". Extremely affecting, and staggering in its simplicity.

This is a film to be watched again and then again, and then again. In one of the DVD extra features, film scholar Donald Ritchie states that he has seen Balthazar many times, yet he still cries during the ending. I believe this and understand it. Credos to Criterion for resurrecting this classic, and for again doing such a fine production job.

It took me years to track down a video copy of this rare film. It was definitely worth searching for. It's my favorite of Bresson's films. A very intense and dark drama about the quality of human and animal life on the face of the earth. This film will definitely bring you to your knees.

Born into a world of despair, pain and fear, with a back to carry allsorts on and two eyes to fill with tears, abused and often put upon, never knowing where things might have gone, but conforming to the stick and whip, while no one hears your prayers.

Poor old Balthazar doesn't know which way to turn, on occasions folks are kind and free, at other times they let him burn, but why are they so changeable, what makes these people tick, is it natural that their spirit is to hurt, with pain inflict.

The hazards of being a young woman growing up in rural France and the challenges of a donkey with the same backdrop, both brilliantly performed by the donkey and Anne Wiazemsky, who leave you under no illusion of the suffering they have to endure.

The film's ending is one of the most memorable in cinema, and achieves an eerie grace, consistent with its almost unique tone - allusively Biblical and allegorical, yet resistant to specific meanings and interpretations. The plot is a narrative of human cruelty and escalating despair, but always with enough mystery in the motivation to ward off easy condemnations; and perhaps even to indicate divine guidance. Throughout, Wiazemsky seizes on the donkey as a symbol of transcendence(her mother calls it a saint in the end); it's formally christened at the beginning and undergoes something approaching a formal funeral, all of which gives its life the contours of a spiritual journey of discovery. The narrative encompasses both revelations (the interlude in the fair; new tortures like the mean old man who starves and beats him) and retrenchment; both life's austerity, its roots in servitude, and its enormous potential dignity. Never was a donkey filmed so evocatively - but as always with Bresson, the simplicity is thrilling too - there's no false artistry here; no dubious anthropomorphism. A necessary film, and I'm amazed that I'm the first one to be commenting on it here.

For all its formal brilliance, this is one of the least watchable films in the world, despite its enchanted opening and fairy tale elements. Seen through the eyes of a much-abused donkey, we are treated to a litany of corruption, legal (a man is accused of fraud), social (provincial France has never seemed so pinched, arid, spiritually void, with its inhabitants leading lives, in Joyce's words, of 'quiet desperation'), criminal (a gang of violent teenage smugglers), and personal (the leader of said gang rapes, with his cronies, his girlfriend, then locks her up naked), as well as a murder and suicide. What makes this possibly bearable is the limpidity and formal beauty of Bresson's style, and admirers refer to his pinpointing spiritual grace in human suffering, but I wouldn't count on it.