Review of Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) by Doug H — 13 Apr 2006

Could this be the best movie ever made? Yes. Yes it could. The most common interpretation of Balthazar is that it's a thinly veiled allegory of the life and death of Christ, which is right in keeping with Bresson's deeply Catholic worldview, but most reviewers tend to overlook the slyly gnostic undertones that pervade the film.

Of course, it's senseless to talk about one of Bresson's films having great performances since he refused to let his "models" act. (Bresson was known to reshoot the same sequence up to 50 times until the performers moved and spoke without any inflection or pretense).

But it is the utter lack of artifice in Bresson's film that provides this picture with a subtle grace that mirrors the stoic dignity of its long-suffering protagonist.