Summary:
The life of a donkey named Balthazar and the townspeople around him whom either treat him well or abuse him.
My Thoughts:
I’ve never quite seen a movie like “Au Hasard Balthazar” before. This is a movie about a donkey, a beast of burden, but it is about so much more than what is on the surface. This isn’t just a simple study of the life of a work animal; it’s a study of existence itself- the empathy, kindness, and also the cruelties we as living beings all face as we go through life. Balthazar the donkey isn’t like any of the animals we’ve seen on screen before- he’s not like one of the silly Dalmatians in “101 Dalmatians”, nor is he like Air Bud in his titular franchise. Balthazar isn’t a special animal, he’s just a donkey, and in that way, Balthazar becomes symbolic of all of us. He is born, goes through hardships along with pleasures, makes friends like Marie (Anne Wiazemsky, “La Chinoise”) as well as enemies like Gerard (Francois Lafarge, “Effraaction”), he endures the humdrum of daily life and also sees things that amaze him, and then, in the end, he dies, like we all must.
“Don’t you believe in anything?” “I believe in what I own. I love money. I hate death.” “You’ll die like everyone else.”
I think the thing that I liked the most about this story was the unique perspective that it had, in terms of storytelling and also cinematography. Throughout much of the film we are witness to partial events- what I mean by that is we almost always see things through Balthazar’s perspective, and he, as a donkey, doesn’t always know what’s going on. For example, we’re shown the aftermath of a murder of someone in the town- but we’re never shown the actual murder, or the court case, or really what happens in the end to those involved (we get a hint of what happened, but Bresson leaves the full resolution up to our imagination).
There are other similar scenes where we are shown images or character actions that heavily imply something bad is going to happen, but we never actually see the sins being committed. As far as cinematography goes, there are a lot of shots that are seemingly from the perspective of Balthazar- not necessarily direct POV shots, but shots that would replicate what a donkey would see in his day to day life. A few of the characters are first introduced by focusing on their feet- a downward glancing perspective like Balthazar would have- before the camera pans up to reveal who we’re looking at. There are plenty of other similar shots too- shots of the road passing below our feet or of the wheels of a cart jouncing along on a bumpy road.
The way that Bresson uses this perspective is fantastic, because it shows us something we’ve never quite seen before, and it does it in a way that is very profound. Balthazar is almost always an indifferent observer to the events that transpire before him (whether they be good or bad); we don’t know what he’s thinking, but we can guess from the way the film is edited and shot. The way that Bresson chooses to direct his actors, too, is with a sort of indifference (think of the scene when Maria is cornered by Gerard on the road- her reaction is to get away from him, but her facial expressions remain stoic throughout the whole interaction). The indifference with which we watch these events transpire is akin to how God probably looks at us as; we know he cares, but he is an observer, not a being that will interfere with the good or bad things that happen to us. He wants us to gleam meaning from the hardships we endure, much like Balthazar, who, while he might not understand why he is being hurt or why he feels pleasure, endures it nonetheless because it is in his nature. We, like Balthazar, are doomed/blessed to continue our lives that are oftentimes beyond our control. We are bound to experience both hurt and relief from pain throughout our lives, and in that way this film transcends it’s subject material. This movie is about a donkey, but it is also about life itself.
Verdict:
While I cant say everyone would enjoy this film as much as I did, for the right audience it will certainly work wonders. For the right person, I could see this being a top ten film, just because it is so exquisitely executed and there is honestly nothing else I’ve seen that’s like this. There are some scenes that move a touch slower than others, but for me that added to the atmosphere of the film. The things that Bresson is able to convey through this film, with its compassionate images and sparse dialogue, is more than many directors say in their entire career.
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