"Au Hasard Balthazar" is also the story of a rebellious girl (Anne Wiazemsky), her proud father (Philippe Asselin), her goody-two-shoes childhood love (Walter Green), and the leather-jacketed town bully Gerard (François Lafarge.) While the humans age and change, the donkey Balthazar changes owners, carries drunken murderers, performs circus tricks, and endures cruel farmers wielding whips. Through all its suffering, the Balthazar is never anthropomorphized: this is not "Babe," and the emotion on the screen is all ours to project.
Bresson's extraordinary direction is a wonder of visual storytelling. Not a word of dialogue is wasted: if something can be skipped or shown rather than told in lengthy exposition, it will be. The result of the elliptical storytelling is a film that is quiet yet chock-full of events. With as little words as necessary, the story keeps constantly moving and stays deeply engrossing.
The quietness of the movie reflects the quiet stoicism of the donkey which observes silently, like us, and when it finally expires among a flock of sheep, the end comes doubly: a sublime cinematic experience that should not be missed.
"Au Hasard Balthazar" will be showing at the Film Forum in New York City from October 17-30 in a radiant new print.
