Director Robert Bresson creates "Poetry in Motion" with this 1966 French Classic.

In 1966, French film directr Robert Bresson would release in May of that year a film that I belatedly came to know and admire for his ability to communicate in a way not so common in the history of World Cinema. It was Robert Bresson's "Au hasard, Balthazar" - part of the Criterion Collection # 297.

Bresson is used with efficiency and with a lot of intelligence a bet that in the present day and cinema is almost unthinkable. Minimal dialogue, minimal music and non-professional actors in order to achieve the necessary "chemical" call to modestly make a grandiose film. This task is not easy and requires a director with great precision in order to succeed in his mission of not simply making a film, but CINEMA in essence.

The seemingly simple story of a donkey that is named after Balthazar (one of the wise men of the Bible) seems unlikely to potentially generate a certain discomfort in the audience of the time by almost forcing us to reflect on our human condition. This is no small feat for an hour and a half film.

Permeated by mystery the story develops in two lives that unfold in parallel. Balthazar's being the main story as well as that of the beautiful Marie (wonderful actress Anna Wiazemsky in her first film) who has known Balthazar almost since he was born and she will accompany him directly and indirectly during the almost total presentation of this film. The relationship between the two is represented in a child's love for her favorite animal, but in this case philosophically transcends.

During the film we watch time go by and the characters take positions for life that is not always easy, on the contrary quite hard and heavy in a rural area of ​​France. Other characters appear in the path of both because Marie who at the beginning and a little girl knows Jacques (a boy just little older than her) who still as children make conjectures of a very far future and even more distant marriage, but when the same Jacques moves out of the village where they lived Marie on the other hand stays and grows in this village.

Meanwhile Balthazar also grows and changes to different owners who constantly, but not always, abuse the donkey. Marie in turn ends up meeting Gerard a rebel boy and his gang who take advantage of the poverty situation in which the girl lives with her family.

What unfolds before our very eyes is a kind of mystery that communicates directly with our belief in right and wrong as well as the film seems to speak directly to our subconscious in a way that even today I don’t quiet remember having this feeling of sadness and beauty at the same time. Throughout the film, the sensation of the donkey's divinity permeates so that Bresson does not allow us to fall into this concept. It simply permeates the divine with an elegance that really makes it difficult to categorize this film.

Bresson was well known for his constant choice of non-professional actors, making the characters always dialogue when strictly necessary. This economy is also present in music and what always prevails are the sounds produced by noise such as a door opening / closing or a letter being removed from its envelope (just to name a few).

It is images without dialogue that communicate directly with our feelings and emotions. There is no way not to notice in Balthazar when he felt pain, pleasure, and sadness just by watching his gaze and his modest and limited movements, as well as the close-ups of Marie's face or her gestures. I mentioned in my video review of this film and here I end with Marguerite Duras's words about her impressions about this film: "What only previously could be expressed through poetry and literature, Bresson expressed with CINEMA".