A Divine Redemption

The protagonist of Au Hasard Balthazar is essentially a donkey. It is a trained donkey and passes through all the mistreated mundane possible episodes in a donkey’s life. It is noble and ignorable, changes hands repeatedly, sometimes well treated sometimes abused and without attentions, carrying loads in rural France or used for trespassing with illegal goods. With these so called a beast of burdens Bresson creates a sublime metaphor for the human condition. There is Maria (Anne Wiazemsky), a peasant girl who also goes through a series of sufferings, a gloomy friendless childhood and a silent witness to mankind's vices and injustices. In they end, however they achieve spiritual redemption.

Some critics cited that Bresson was inspired by Dostoevyski’s The Idiot. With his religious background he created an uplifting fusion between both. The donkey is a symbol of a moron and sometimes a symbol of the uplifted soul (in Bible there are numerous occurrences where the donkey is used as an enlighten one).

Bresson has a unique way to capture the characters. His deep aversion to actors or any camera tricks, shooting “ears” or “hands” or “back of legs” than a human face or the whole human body, creating a meddle between Schubert’s piano sonatas and Balthazar’s braying, are just few hypnotic trances in the movie. There are so many poetic juggleries in the movie that it is difficult to pen down all. From my memory I cannot forget the most morbid but beautiful scene where Maria in a nocturnal reunion with Balthazar, caressing the flower-crowned head of him, before an ill-fated meeting with the thug Gerard. Maria is paying some kind of obligations to Balthazar with most of her spirit, as she knows the donkey is finally the icon who will be crucified.

Critics have commented a lot about the last shot of the film. It is an austere aesthetic and blessed scene. We see a long-suffering wounded Balthazar is crippling in pain and wrinkles to death among a herd of sheep. In accord with the beginning, we remember how the baby Balthazar was born and baptized in an utopian world with a belled sheep grazing in the background. Endlessly we see the donkey is crumpling in pain and sooner the accumulated pains of life releases with his dying. Balthazar carries our sins as a burden and discharges them in a most divine shot of movie history.

Au hazard Balthazar is cited as one of the greatest movie experiences of 21th century. No wonder why Godard called this masterpiece as Bresson’s “most complete” effort. The movie is a search of purity, a trip to sainthood; it leads to a greater meaning of our existence on planet earth.

Au Hasard Balthazar ( 1966)
Directed By : Robert Bresson