Au Hasard Balthazar
" Robert Bresson is one of the saints of the cinema, and Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) is his most heartbreaking prayer. The film follows the life of a donkey from birth to death, while all the time living it the dignity of being itself--a dumb beast, noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control. Balthazar is not one of those cartoon animals that can talk and sing and is a human with four legs. Balthazar is a donkey, and it is as simple as that." "We first see Balthazar as a newborn, taking its first unsteady steps, and there is a scene that provides a clue to the rest of the film; three children sprinkle water on its head and baptize it. What Bresson may be suggesting is that although the church teaches that only humans can enter into heaven, surely there is a place at God's side for all of his creatures." "Balthazar's early life is lived on a farm in the rural French district where all the action takes place; the donkey will be owned many of the locals, and return to some of them more than once. A few of them are good, but all of them are flawed, although there is a local drunk who is not cruel or thoughtless to the animal, despite his other crimes." ..."Balthazar makes no attempt to communicate its emotions to us,
and it comunicates its physical feelings only in universal terms: Covered
ith snow, it is cold. Its tail set afire, it is frightened. Eating
its dinner, it is content. Overworked, it is exhausted. Returning home,
it is relieved to find a familiar place. Although some humans are kind
to it and others are cruel, the motives of humans are beyond its understanding,
and it accepts what they do because it must.
Curator's Comments: Read Roger Ebert's essay on this DVD Classic. Director: Robert Bresson Country: France
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Copyright 1996, 2005, Library Media Project, Chicago,
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