Au Hasard Balthazar [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Robert Bresson Robert Bresson

Overview

Filmmaker Robert Bresson is well known for taking subjects that on the surface seem ordinary and insignificant and using simple means, showing viewers something rare and powerful. This heartbreaking yet thought-provoking drama tells the life story of a French donkey, but in true Bresson fashion is really a grim, ironic reflection on human nature. The donkey's first experience with humans is as the much-loved pet of small children on a French farm, but its next is as a creature of toil when it is passed to an angry young woman. The poor woman has a tragic life that ends violently when her cruel lover has her gang raped and killed. The lover, a biker, takes the donkey and tortures it too. The poor jackass then ends up with a sadistic farmer who mercilessly beats it. He too, comes to a bad end. The donkey then goes to a circus where it becomes a star, but this doesn't last for long and he is next forced to pull a plow. Toward the end of his hard life, the burro becomes the property of a gentle old man who sees him as a reincarnated saint.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/29/2018
UPC:	0715515215510
Original Release:	1966
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:35:00
Sales rank:	359

Special Features

New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Interview from 2004 with film scholar Donald Richie; "Un metteur en ordre: Robert Bresson," a 1966 French television program about the film, featuring Director Robert Bresson, filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and Louis Malle, and members of Au hasard Bolthazar's cast and crew; Trailer; Plus: An essay by film scholar James Quandt

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Anne Wiazemsky	Actor
François Lafarge	Actor
Philippe Asselin	Actor
Nathalie Joyaut	Actor
Walter Green	Actor
Jean-Claude Guilbert	Actor
Pierre Klossowski	Actor
François Sullerot	Actor
M.C. Fremont	Actor
Jean Remignard	Actor
Francois Lefarge	Actor

Technical Credits

Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson	Director,Screenwriter
Mag Bodard	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Robert Bresson is one of the few directors in the history of world cinema who worked entirely on his terms and turf without interference from anyone, resolutely insisting that his vision of the world was nearer the mark than his contemporaries, and pursuing a directorial style which is so uniquely his own that there is no mistaking a Bresson film for a work by any other director. A devout Catholic, Bresson made only 14 films in his 50-year career as a director, a measure of how seriously he planned each next project. Au Hasard Balthazar is, like most of Bresson's films, a religious parable. Here, the lead character is a donkey, christened Balthazar early in the film, who endures endless punishment from a variety of cruel masters and crueler circumstances, until, at the end of the film, he finally and peacefully dies, and, by implication, is welcomed into paradise. As in all his films, Bresson uses his actors (whom he habitually referred to as "models") in the sparest possible manner. Much is told through gesture alone, and speech and music are kept to a minimum. In his direction of the players, Bresson strips down their mannerisms until they disappear, and only the essence of their humanity appears on the screen. Balthazar's life is one of unrelieved pain and sadness, yet one gets the sense that the donkey stoically accepts this sad lot as his predestined fate without complaint, certain of his eventual spiritual salvation Much has been written about this film, and it remains as powerful today as when first released; it is a reminder of a time when films of considerable artistic ambition could still be assured of reasonable returns at the box office, unlike today. In the blockbuster climate of 21st century cinema, Au Hasard Balthazar seems like a miracle, a breath of fresh air from another time and place, in which both artistic originality and the human spirit were equally valued. Compelling, humbling, and stunning in its visual construction, Au Hasard Balthazar is a one-of-a-kind film from an absolutely unique filmmaker.

All Movie Guide - Wheeler Winston Dixon