Au Hasard BalthazarDoes an animal have a soul? Watching Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, one would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. The film chronicles the life of a donkey from the time he was acquired as a pet for a French family, beloved by the family until they move away, where he is left behind to begin his increasingly tragic life of toil and abuse. He is reunited with Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), now a young woman, who is a bit shy and naive. Balthazar's suffering parallels Marie's, as she is often abused by the same people who in turn abuse Balthazar, including her malicious boyfriend, Gérard (François Lafarge).
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Exposition in Au Hasard Balthazar is kept to a minimum or is even nonexistent at times; this is by design, as the film is principally concerned with Balthazar's experiences over that of Marie and her family. What little information we glean deals with issues of Marie's father (Philippe Asselin), who appears to have been accused of stealing the profits from a farm land he tends. A young man named Jacques (Walter Green), who grew up with Marie--and is in love with her--is also the son of the land owner; Jacques tries to arbitrate between the two fathers to no avail. The lovely Marie catches the eye of local delinquent and smuggler, Gérard, who molests her and manipulates her into an abusive relationship. Just as Marie's soul is being crushed under the weight of his selfishness, Gérard also abuses Balthazar to deliver bread and help him smuggle goods across the border, pressing the donkey into action by cruel methods such as tying a burning piece of newspaper to his tail to get him to move. Balthazar exists in a world growing increasingly colder, just as Marie suffers abuses and abandons her naivete for worldliness over the span of the film. From the start of Au Hasard Balthazar, the setting in rural France is rustic, where modern conveniences and even automobiles are more rare. As time marches on, the presence of modern elements--like transistor radios--become more commonplace...and yet the people in this brave new world only appear to suffer more and more in spite of these modern amenities. Balthazar becomes regarded in part as an antiquated feature of the old world, and is not cherished or valued as a result. For Marie, he represents a childhood toy, one which has since been discarded. Marie's lack of interest in Balthazar follows Gérard's attack on her, as if his influence and predilection for malice has poisoned her, turning her wanton and willful against her father. After one of many secret trysts away at a cabin, Balthazar is left out in the winter's cold, and nearly dies from the exposure, revealing how Marie only half-heartedly cares for his welfare by this point. For a film filled with pathos, one of the most heartbreaking moments is when a slightly older, rain drenched Marie takes refuge in the home of a miserly grain dealer (Pierre Klossowski), and she passes by the beloved pet of her youth without a second glance, the same one that she and her friends cared so much for that they even baptized him. This shows that the bitterness and cynicism which Marie professes is less a front than an affliction which is strangling her, since she no longer shares the youthful love and innocence which we witnessed from the start.
If there was ever an animal who would deserve an award for best performance, it would be Balthazar. In truth, the credit belongs to Bresson, who in a stroke of directorial genius, evokes emotion and creates subtext in the donkey by virtue of clever camerawork and editing. Moments such as the brief stint where Balthazar gets a crack at life in the circus is preceded by a scene where he is taken to the various cages where different circus animals are kept. We get close up shots of the eyes of the animals, who convey some semblance of intelligence; but what is written on the face of Balthazar is far more evocative, and speaks volumes by virtue of the timing of the edits, angles, and so on. Bresson frames his star in such a way that we impose our own interpretation of what Balthazar must be thinking, what his personality is, based on this perspective and the events in his life. This ultimately means that what Balthazar is feeling and thinking is subjective, and makes each person's viewing of Au Hasard Balthazar a unique and personal experience, one which capitalizes on our natural tendencies to sympathize with animals and fosters an empathetic response to the noble beast's suffering. Even in his quickened stride away from another abusive owner--a drunken joint conspirator and enemy of Gérard's named Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert)--speaks to Balthazar's wish to escape his fearful captivity and finding refuge somewhere else. One cringes at the thought that if this film were made today, there would be the temptation to supplant the quiet moments--periodically set to the sounds of Schubert's symphonies and the braying of Balthazar--with narration or some inner monologue for the donkey, delivered with exceeding banality by some celebrity voice actor, or anthropomorphizing Balthazar in the Pixar fashion. The title of the film--Au Hasard Balthazar--roughly means "Balthazar, at random", meant to describe the series of seemingly random events which showcase the life of a donkey. However, the moments of the film are no more random than the most resonant of memories, those times when we recall our suffering and our longing, what we endure along the difficult battle that is life, be it for a man or an animal.
Recommended for: Fans of a poignant meditation on the nature of cruelty and innocence lost as seen from the perspective of a humble donkey.
If there was ever an animal who would deserve an award for best performance, it would be Balthazar. In truth, the credit belongs to Bresson, who in a stroke of directorial genius, evokes emotion and creates subtext in the donkey by virtue of clever camerawork and editing. Moments such as the brief stint where Balthazar gets a crack at life in the circus is preceded by a scene where he is taken to the various cages where different circus animals are kept. We get close up shots of the eyes of the animals, who convey some semblance of intelligence; but what is written on the face of Balthazar is far more evocative, and speaks volumes by virtue of the timing of the edits, angles, and so on. Bresson frames his star in such a way that we impose our own interpretation of what Balthazar must be thinking, what his personality is, based on this perspective and the events in his life. This ultimately means that what Balthazar is feeling and thinking is subjective, and makes each person's viewing of Au Hasard Balthazar a unique and personal experience, one which capitalizes on our natural tendencies to sympathize with animals and fosters an empathetic response to the noble beast's suffering. Even in his quickened stride away from another abusive owner--a drunken joint conspirator and enemy of Gérard's named Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert)--speaks to Balthazar's wish to escape his fearful captivity and finding refuge somewhere else. One cringes at the thought that if this film were made today, there would be the temptation to supplant the quiet moments--periodically set to the sounds of Schubert's symphonies and the braying of Balthazar--with narration or some inner monologue for the donkey, delivered with exceeding banality by some celebrity voice actor, or anthropomorphizing Balthazar in the Pixar fashion. The title of the film--Au Hasard Balthazar--roughly means "Balthazar, at random", meant to describe the series of seemingly random events which showcase the life of a donkey. However, the moments of the film are no more random than the most resonant of memories, those times when we recall our suffering and our longing, what we endure along the difficult battle that is life, be it for a man or an animal.
Recommended for: Fans of a poignant meditation on the nature of cruelty and innocence lost as seen from the perspective of a humble donkey.