One of donkey and the rest of world, those are the two ingredients of Au hasard Balthazar. We follow the many lives of Balthazar, who lives as a work animal, a fairground attraction, a smuggler’s pack donkey. His life is a touching journey through the dark sides of humanity.
Au hasard Balthazar contains the whole world in an hour and a half, said Jean-Luc Godard about this minimalist fable by Robert Bresson. And that world is rather bleak. Au hasard Balthazar is a powerful parable (is the donkey Balthazar a representation of Jesus Christ?) about human cruelty. Bresson tells an ultimately melodramatic odyssey, stripping its imagery back to its very essence. One of the true landmarks in French cinema, that inspired directors such as Béla Tarr, Michael Haneke and Aki Kaurismäki.
With support of Institut français NL and the IF-cinéma programme
ZomerCinema: AMOUR
First love, obsessive love, forbidden love, unrequited love, true love: love comes in a thousand forms — and thus in a thousand films. With a programme of twelfe French films, we celebrate (and question) love in all its manifestations. Because France is the country of love. Right?
From sultry summer films to works that explore the destructive shadow sides of love. And from classics by established filmmakers such as Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut to films by contemporary directors such as Justine Triet and Vanessa Filho: it is l’été de l’amour.
- Director
- Robert Bresson
- Length
- 92′
- Country
- France
- Language
- English
- Supported By
- Institut français NL
Jean, an ‘old teenager of forty’ and failed film-maker, is married to Françoise, a woman of his own age with whom he lives, probably more out of a need for protection than out of affection. For the past six years he has had a twenty-five year old mistress, Catherine, who is very much in love
