"Au Hasard Balthazar" (1966)

Au Hasard Balthazar begins with a highly sentimental montage about the childhood of of a handful of its prominent characters. Everything after these early scenes, however, is brutally unsentimental. Writer-director Robert Bresson goes extensively out of his way to show how innocent and naive his characters were at this age, and how much has changed since then.

Bresson uses the framing device of the life of the donkey Balthazar to weave the the various stories throughout together. Balthazar witnesses events but since he's only a donkey he takes everything in stride as a beast of burden. And this is important because he sees and experiences awful things throughout his short life; yet he never passes judgement. In deed, the film is often shot from lower angles, from the height level of Balthazar, and turns the perspective of the donkey into an objective observer of the film's story. The film is elliptical and minimalist, suggesting large information through small moments and episodes rather than a more straightforward narrative. While Bresson's style suggests an emotional distance from his story, he makes us feel deep emotion underneath the cool, objective gaze.

The film connects Balthazar with the timid Mari (Anne Wiazemsky), whose known the donkey since her childhood. Mari's quiet demeanor causes her to be misunderstood or abused by nearly every person around her. She wants to escape her her stifling life, but when her adventures away from home prove too much, she can't seem to settle down either. Balthazar, similarly, is repeatedly and needlessly beaten by individuals using his labor.  Balthazar's trials abroad from the small farm also end badly, but in its own ways the farm life isn't much better. Perhaps saddest of all, Mari's only true friendship was with Balthazar, but she slowly forgets about the animal. It's an unconventional friendship but the two got something out of it for a time, but as Balthazar increasingly starts to become emblematic of a youth long since fade into memory, he too is forgotten and overlooked.

The film is unafraid to make its characters come off as terrible people, but it also forms complex characters who aren't simply good or evil. Mari represents broken innocence. She's raped early in the film, and her treatment only becomes more depressing and miserable as the film goes on. But the film doesn't treat her like a convenient symbol; she has unforgivable things done at her expense, but the film makes her a full character who has complicated and plausible reasons for being complicit in her circumstances and treatment.

Balthazar offers so much to the people he helps and they offer almost nothing in return. The film depicts him in almost religious terms. He's called a saint at one point, and his death at the film's conclusion has a Biblical quality; Balthazar lies down in green pastures amongst a shepherd and his sheep, as if Balthazar is a Christ figure. He's suffered at the expense of the sins of his various owners, and he ultimately dies due to those sins.

It's undeniably a purposely challenging film, but its accumulated, deeply affecting weight about human existence is powerful and beautiful.

Grade: ★★★★