Review of Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) by Matt G — 19 Jul 2007

I'm really beginning to grasp Bresson as a filmmaker. Mouchette was the only other film I had seen from him, and I respected the realism but never really saw the brilliance in narrative. Bathazar made things really click for me.

It is very simple, but in a fascinating way, much like Bicycle Thieves. It never preaches the lessons it might have in its story and allows the audience to take what they want out of it. I took a lot out of this story.

It is the story of an innocent donkey in a world that is so sinful that innocence is either corrupted or forced to die. There is one scene of dialogue that I really liked. It is near the end, when the main female character and her childhood friend have reunited.

He expresses his utmost love for her, and she simply cannot accept it. She says that she lived in a different world back when they were children and they shared adolescent feelings of love. As a grown adult, she has been forced into another world, that of reality, and it is one in which she cannot love, nor feel anything.

I really think this is what Balthazar and Mouchette were both about. They are the tragedies of three entities of innocence (two in Balthazar) which have been launched into the sins of mankind, made to accept them, and found no place at all to exist.