Au hasard Balthazar

Mon 22 February at 7.30 pm

France/Sweden 1966 Dir: Robert Bresson

95 mins (ends 9.05 pm) Subtitled

Cast: Anne Wiazemsky, Francois Lafarge, Philippe Asselin, Nathalie Joyaut

Bresson's penultimate black-and-white film is a study in saintliness, a powerful and poignant tale of wickedness and suffering, and a grim look at the innate cruelty and destructive impulses of man. By treating the eponymous donkey as a symbol of purity, virtue, and salvation, and by giving his picture a simple yet effective episodic structure, Bresson invests Balthazar with a remarkable intensity that is only enhanced by the stark visual style. Balthazar is an oft-exploited donkey who gets passed from owner to owner, in the process experiencing and observing all manner of human good and evil. His harsh and sorrowful existence, in which he is frequently mistreated, is paralleled by that of Marie (Wiazemsky), a reserved young woman who becomes involved with a cruel and sadistic man, Gerard (Lafarge), who eventually rejects her. Toward the end of his difficult life, however, the former children's pet, circus attraction, and beast of burden becomes the property of a gentle old miller who views him as a reincarnated saint. “Balthazar stands alone atop one of the loftiest pinnacles of artistically realised emotional experiences” (Andrew Sarris).

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