"Au Hasard Balthazar"

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So I finally sat down to watch Au Hasard Balthazar for the first time last night. I had heard about it so much that I managed to get a copy (I missed the theatrical rerelease last year), even though I never really dug late period Bresson. During the film's last five minutes I just broke down. Even after having read about it for years I had no idea how incredibly heartbreaking and at the same time beautiful the ending would be. And this is in a film full of just intense, resonant moments, both beautiful and horrible. I really, in all my years of watching, loving and hating films, don't think I've ever been moved by a film like this one has and I can't stop thinking about it. What do those of you who've seen it think?

Who else?

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Thursday, 6 May 2004 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry - meant to get rid of the "who else?"

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Thursday, 6 May 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

acht, i got bored and switched it off about an hour in. i wish i had stuck it out tho, i love crying.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 6 May 2004 23:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been wanting to see this after reading Hoberman's obit on Bresson in the Voice. I liked the other two of his movies that I've seen.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 May 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone mentioned on I Love Film that Criterion's releasing it. The copy I got was DVD from videocassette, but it doesn't matter. It's a great film. Jed - try and stick it out next time. I think (obviously from my post) it'll be well worth it.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 7 May 2004 01:09 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a few years since I've seen it, but yes, I was certainly moved by it too. Beautifully stark, simple compositions, and the wholly unprofessional cast add to the overall naturalistic fable quality. It's the only one of RB's films I've yet seen, and I very much want to see more of them...

― Tom May (Tom May), Friday, 7 May 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

It's the only one I've seen too. My g/f uses it as shorthand for bonkers crazy film buff doolaliness ('donkey movies'). Its appeal is totally opaque to me. If someone could explain it without employing mystico-catholic-transcendental terminology, I'd be grateful.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Friday, 7 May 2004 12:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Its appeal is totally opaque to me. If someone could explain it without employing mystico-catholic-transcendental terminology, I'd be grateful.

My personal interpretation, at the moment, is that it's a meditation on innocence. The brief joy while it exists in people (Balthazar remains innocent throughout the film while the humans don't. Even the town half-wit is corrupted.), the loss of it (the kids in the film) and its abuse (Marie, Balthazar ).

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 7 May 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't understand at all the need to "interpret" (i.e., reduce) a film like this

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

bresson is kind of "either you get it or you don't" kind of territory for me. i've never seen a boring bresson film (and i've seen about 4 or 5)

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

boring really is the last thing they are, i find my senses almost working to the point of breaking when i see his films

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 7 May 2004 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

and afterward, the world around me changes, if only for a while

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 7 May 2004 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

reading the new book on godard and a bit about "letting the camera fulfill its historic mission to let us see the world" makes me think of bresson. if i were foolish enough to proclaim anything ultimate cinema then bresson would be it.

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

There is too much of a kneejerk need to interpret and to categorise, in some cases; this film does deserve a higher discourse really, if any.

I do find it quite pitiable that anyone would find it 'boring', when it was so damn gripping for me to watch, with its entrancing clear-headedness.

Has anyone seen "Lancelot du Lac"? I've always been intrigued by the sound of that one; a demystified, deromanticised take on the Arthurian stuff.

― Tom May (Tom May), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

it's pretty amazing--i found it pretty dark and despairing tho.

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 7 May 2004 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

this may have been the film that made me the maddest at the characters. it was so sad and infuriatiing, but i assume it was meant to be that way and bresson really impressed me.

(sorry for the bad wording and spelling)

― todd swiss (eliti), Friday, 7 May 2004 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

lancelot is one of my favorites; bresson interested himself not as much in filling in the historical background (there are numerous blatant anachronisms, in fact) but in attending to the phenomenological detail appropriate to the period: sounds of armor chinking, horses' feet rustling, wind whipping against tents, etc. it's probably the bresson film that feels--if only because on inevitably compares it to other period films, and films on the same subject--truly minimalist. to the point of absurdity sometimes, as when a jousting match is illustrated by the turning of several spectator's heads (and the repeating of the word "lancelot" several times at intervals) and isolated shots of horses' hoofs and broken lances (not unlike the car chase in "l'argent," but even better). it's definitely extreme, and i understand why it provokes laughter (there are a few sequences so extreme i have to laugh, but i hope i'm laughing with bresson in some fashion). but the ending is particularly... memorable. it's coming out on dvd in the states soon, so pick it up.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 8 May 2004 08:27 (twenty-one years ago)

ten months pass...

...

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 28 March 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

still hasn't reached Minneapolis, to my knowledge

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 28 March 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

Lancelot is my favourite film, probably.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 28 March 2005 05:20 (twenty years ago)

That's not quite true, I don't enjoy much of it in any recognisable sense, but there's something so there, I dunno... I read Malory again after and it was like the pages were lined with black glass.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 28 March 2005 05:23 (twenty years ago)

This is finally coming out on R1 DVD in June (Criterion).

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Saturday, 2 April 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

I preordered the shit out of that Criterion. Now watch Oak Street's next Sunday matinee series get assigned to Bresson.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 2 April 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

Criterion rockin' the releases. Can't wait for this (so I can get rid of my current DVD-R copy) and F For Fake !

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Saturday, 2 April 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

i was just hoping this would happen last week! i missed this screening last fall, so i've been hopeful that someone would do this up right. i wish, more than anything else that criterion would get a man escaped too. and then chris marker's documentary, the grin without a cat.

/drooling spazzout.

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Sunday, 3 April 2005 00:22 (twenty years ago)

i finally caught up with four nights of a dreamer and a gentle woman. there are movie parodies in each one, funny enough.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 3 April 2005 17:39 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

http://www.agschools.com/humor/Flyingdonkey.jpg

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 06:14 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

That donkey. That immutable, cyperous donkey.

― Eric H: not a troll, with one exception (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:06 (twenty years ago)

funny how among all the recent commentary on this film, no one has thought to ask the donkey what he thought of his character.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:26 (twenty years ago)

also have you noticed that the IMDB does not list nonhumans as actors, even when (as in this film) they are the lead actors? what are the implications of this? are they making an argument about the essence of human consciousness vs. lower-animal consciousness? is filmographical information on animals simply not available and/or reliable? how many "benji"s were there anyway?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:28 (twenty years ago)

(x-post)

I think Bresson would probably recommend that approach about as much as he would recommend asking him personally.

Especially considering both are dead.

have you noticed that the IMDB does not list nonhumans as actors, even when (as in this film) they are the lead actors?

If only Maurice Chevalier had provided the voice for Balthazar...

― Eric H: not a troll, with one exception (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

Actually, Lassie has three IMDB entries.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)

Benji also has a couple but I'm not gonna link to them.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:38 (twenty years ago)

A couple others.

Anyone know what Balthazar's stage name was?

― Eric H: not a troll, with one exception (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:45 (twenty years ago)

i don't know if "balthazar" had a name, as bresson insisted on using an untrained donkey (i'm not sure how many trained donkeys there are, or what they'd be trained for exactly, but anyway). do farmers tend to give donkeys names? do their children tend to baptize those donkeys? the world is waiting for a definitive answer.

but daddino, that's so odd because the same dog can't have been in the 1950s and 1990s versions of "lassie"! they're listing the concept or character rather than the animal itself, no?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:47 (twenty years ago)

xxpost

wow, they really do list animals! so where is "balthazar"!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:48 (twenty years ago)

there was a wonderful article in the NYT today about the english version of "mon oncle", which suggested that the dogs in the film are likely to have been francophones.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:49 (twenty years ago)

wow, they really do list animals! so where is "balthazar"!

He never had an agent.

― Eric H: not a troll, with one exception (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:49 (twenty years ago)

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