In every review of “Au Hasard Balthazar,” it’s clarified that Robert Bresson’s masterpiece is NOT about a donkey. The donkey that shares the film’s name and is followed from birth to death is not a cartoon character, he does not get reaction shots and he does not have thoughts or feelings; he is a donkey. In this fashion, the film is a haunting portrait of life, an often solemn depiction of reality and a religious parable in numerous ways. It is again not a fantasy in the way a movie about a donkey might imply.
And yet Bresson’s film is something of a fantasy. The donkey itself is not merely alive but is baptized at the beginning, presumably bestowing it a soul. One of the main characters Gerard (Francois Lafarge) is hardly a teenager but a sadistic monster. The town drunk Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert) happens to come into a large inheritance. And the way in which Balthazar the donkey changes hands and finds its way back to the protagonist Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) time and again bares a resemblance to Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse.”
When looked at in this way, “Au Hasard Balthazar” doesn’t always seem so grim. Its initial set up is something of a paradise for the young animal and the young children, and that along with the use of Schubert in the score makes the whole thing feel ethereal and spiritual, as though life can be dour and rough, but it is still a life. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Au Hasard Balthazar”