Au Hasard Balthazar is nothing short of a masterpiece, a work of art of the highest order; amongst the greatest dozen or two films ever made, and on par with the same highly ranked works of art by the greatest writers, poets, playwrights, musicians, and painters. It also points out convincingly why art is better than religion or philosophy in dealing with the ‘big questions’ in life, for art has an economy neither of the other two pursuits possess; witness Balthazar’s death. How many words would be spilt in a religious text or philosophic tract to distill what the mere sight of a dying donkey amidst sheep does?
Art is models of the real that encode and decode the real while elevating the very process of that encoding and decoding. Art (and especially film and its even more abstract cousin, poetry) can penetrate far more deeply, and with far less distraction than any other human media, into the essentials of existence. Art can elucidate these matters with eloquence and profundity; and art, and only art, can do so in the hands of a great artist.
I give you Robert Bresson.
Article comments
1 - Jon
Oh dear. This review is awful - and I say that though I think Balthazar is a masterpiece.
Is 12 pages of waffle really necessary for a review of the film? In the time it takes to read that I probably could have watched the film again. About 4 pages of that was merely plot describing! And 6 of them were just attacking other critics! Does Mr. Schneider actively search out critics to disagree with? Numerous critics have mentioned Bresson's technique, his use of ellipsis and to what extent the religious imagery is a mask for other things - and with more acuity and less adolescent ranting than this article.
I wont come back to comment, or read any more reviews by this guy because I've seen how any argument on these pages just descend into childish sniping. Still an awful review though.
And the donkey dies/ is dying at the end. To say not is just being very petty.
2 - Robert H
This paragraph--
"As for the DVD, put out by The Criterion Collection, it comes with no English dubbed soundtrack, and only white subtitles " a poor combination, as I’ve oft lamented. The positive of this, though, is that there is not much dialogue in the film that needs translation, and certainly no long speeches. Unfortunately, there is not even an audio film commentary track. This is simply inexcusable in this day and age, especially for such high priced merchandise as Criterion peddles."
--calls into question the legitimacy of anything you say before or after. The fact that you say (or at least imply) that you'd prefer to see a foreign film dubbed into English, makes me wonder if you actually do love foreign films. I can't know for sure, but this makes me think you might also prefer Balthazar in color.
3 - Dan Schneider
If you'd prefer to have up to 1/3 of your visual art marred by letters, go ahead, but any foreign films that are well-dubbed (many Ingmar Bergmans and some Fellinis) are far superior to the defacement of subtitling.
But, if you prefer it, go ahead.