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Movies / On DVD / Au Hasard Balthazar
Au Hasard Balthazar

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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

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Reviews Counted: 28

Fresh: 28

Rotten:0

Average Rating: 9.1/10

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: Often praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but long unavailable in the United States, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is suffused with the same religious imagery and themes that mark much of... Often praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but long unavailable in the United States, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is suffused with the same religious imagery and themes that mark much of director Robert Bresson's films. Like his masterpiece DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, Bresson's AU HASARD BALTHAZAR combines religious allegory with a naturalistic, austere, and minimalist aesthetic style that matches his ascetic themes. The film tells the story of Marie, an unlucky farm girl, and her beloved donkey Balthazar. As Marie grows up, the pair become separated, but the film traces both their fates as they continue to live a parallel existence. Marie and Balthazar become martyrs, eventually taking the sins of others upon their own heads and finding transcendence in the process. AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is like Bresson's other works in that it seamlessly combines the naturalistic and the spiritual. [More]

Starring: Anne Wiazemsky, Philippe Asselin

Starring: Anne Wiazemsky, Philippe Asselin

Director: Robert Bresson

Director: Robert Bresson

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Release:

Jun 14, 2005

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Au Hasard Balthazar

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If you can see past the heavy-handed religious overtones you will encounter an inspired and deeply intelligent Bresson classic.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
04/27/09
David Parkinson
Empire Magazine

Perhaps the greatest and most revolutionary of Bresson's films, Balthazar is a difficult but transcendently rewarding experience, never to be missed.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
04/27/09
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

likely as lost on today's audience as the saintly donkey that bears man's burdens on his back only to be beaten, neglected and, finally, rejected.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
07/22/08
Jason Morgan
Filmcritic.com

The film does maintain a powerful mood throughout, a kind of stringency, and the fate of the humans fades into insignificance as the film draws to a bleak close.

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
05/30/08
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile

It's a study of human weakness and cruelty, it's a portrait of Christ the suffering servant, it's the heartbreaking story of a young girl's descent from innocence to despair. But above all, it's a movie about a donkey.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment Comment
09/01/06
Ron Reed
Christianity Today

The film is perhaps the director's most perfectly realised, and certainly his most moving.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

Bresson's greatest masterpiece.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/09/05
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A deft, impassioned, and wrenching film, but also — emphatically, absurdly — a film about a donkey. Indeed, it hardly pretends to be much more.

Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You | comment Comment
07/26/05
Leo Goldsmith
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Each scene emerges as a minor miracle. Which makes the sum total an object of extraordinary glory.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
06/24/05
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

The lens of dispassion Bresson invites us to look through during Balthazar embodies "a prayer which slips into life without interrupting it."

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
06/22/05
Eric Henderson
Slant Magazine

Bresson’s most poetic, haunting, personal work.

Full Review Source: Decent Films Guide | comment Comment
06/20/05
Steven D. Greydanus
Decent Films Guide

Robert Bresson's aesthetic of realist, material sounds and images assembled in paradoxical ways virtually defines the cinematic parable...

Full Review Source: Filmjourney | comment Comment
06/14/05
Doug Cummings
Filmjourney

This is what makes Au Hasard Balthazar so powerful, and yet so distant. It asks as much of its audience as it does of its characters...

Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com | comment Comment
06/14/05
Bill Gibron
DVDTalk.com

This is neither an easy film, nor, in the show biz sense, an entertaining one. It makes large demands upon its audience, and in return confers exceptional rewards.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
05/09/05
Roger Greenspun
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Quietly devastating, nearly perfect allegory.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
04/09/04
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[In Au hasard Balthazar] the suffering is tempered...with the sense of small relief for the quiet little donkey that captured my heart.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
04/01/04
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

The most modern equivalent of [Balthazar's] final scene may be the ending of Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves."

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
03/31/04
Laura Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Bresson is one of the saints of the cinema, and Au Hasard Balthazar is his most heartbreaking prayer.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
03/19/04
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

...has the transcendent beauty of a Renaissance painting and the inspiring fire of a sermon.

Full Review Source: Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) | comment Comment
03/19/04
Josh Larsen
Sun Publications (Chicago, IL)

An extraordinary work.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
03/18/04
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
 
 
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