SCREENING IN THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION AUDITORIUM
#25 on Sight & Sound’s List of The Greatest Films of All Time
“Everyone who sees this film will be absolutely astonished… because this film is really the world in an hour and a half.”
95 minutes. Not Rated. Directed by Robert Bresson. In French with English subtitles.
A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly. Through Bresson’s unconventional approach to composition, sound, and narrative, this simple story becomes a moving parable about purity and transcendence.