The circus employee leads the donkey through the circus’s zoo, and there is a sequence of scenes between Balthazar’s eyes, as they meet the eyes of some caged animals, including a tiger, a polar bear, an ape, and an elephant. There is no sound, only the back and forth connection between beasts. As the other animals are behind bars, and the donkey is being led by its mouth, many critics have taken this near-pure cinema moment as just that (akin to a similar wordless passage in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup, wherein images alone distill the lead character’s thought processes), while others have read into it an overwrought condemnation of the bondage and suffering that animals endure at human hands. But the reason the scene works is not any political content, but an essential universal content. The human element is rendered immaterial; all that matters is what the beasts commiserate with, or communicate to, each other. And, via the eyes, we can all understand this language without definition. What makes the moment even more daring is that there is not a single frame elsewhere in the film where any of the human characters experience such a deep connection with each other, much less do it via shared sight.
At a local showing, Arnold wanders into the circus, and sees Balthazar, who has been trained as a ‘mathematical’ animal. Seeing Arnold, the donkey reacts negatively (due to the seen and likely unseen beatings Arnold has inflicted), as the circus people are not able to control him. We then get an ellipsis to Arnold and the donkey walking down a road. We don’t need to see the particulars of how he recovered his animal, one of many wise moves Bresson makes with the film’s narrative. After all, how could that add to the deeper nature of the tale and its trajectory?
Arnold returns home, and is then goaded by Gerard, who warns him that the cops are after him, and gives the old drunkard a gun he hopes Arnold will shoot at the cops. Why he does so is plain: a) he is a sadist, and b) he likely knows that Arnold’s death will remove him as a potential witness against Gerard for the many crimes the older man likely knows Gerard has committed. But, Arnold does not shoot the gun.
The cops, it turns out, are not there to arrest him for the claimed murder that all but Gerard seem to have forgotten. Instead, he has inherited a fortune. Gerard and the town’s youngsters help him celebrate at a local bar, until Gerard and his thugs drunkenly vandalize the place, smashing glass. It is there where Marie swears her undying love to Gerard, forsaking her mother’s pleas to return home (we can surmise that she has been tramping about with Gerard and sullying her (and her family’s) reputation. The gang then packs a plastered Arnold on to Balthazar. A bit later, another sublime moment occurs, at night, as Arnold recovers his senses, and looks up into the night sky, speaking vaguely about and to the person he supposedly killed. He then falls off the donkey, and dies in the road. Cut to Balthazar seen pulling Arnold’s casket.
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.