Claimants for this view of the film will point to such (shallow) things as Marie’s calling Balthazar a saint, when Gerard asks to use it in his last smuggling scheme. But, calling anyone or thing saintly has, by now (and including a mere forty years ago) become a secular term for any good or decent thing. They will claim that Balthazar is baptized and named after one of the Three Wise Men. Okay, but if the donkey had been named Charles, after General de Gaulle, would it have made the film an allegory of exile and conquest? After all, like the French war hero, the townsfolk can’t seem to ever be rid of the beast. It keeps coming back!
They will also point to an early scene where Marie crafts a crown of thorns to put on Balthazar’s head. But a) it’s not thorns, but flowers, and b) this is a childhood ritual many young girls do to their pets and dolls. The fact is that Balthazar’s fur is short, so could not easily be entwined with flowers (in a 1968 San Francisco style); a crown of sorts is the easiest form to get the flowers to remain. Lastly, if all else fails, they will point to Marie’s name as being a derivative of Mary. Wow! Recall what I earlier wrote about the symbolism of the shallow? Is it not likely that this is one of the things used as a way to hide the deeper ideas and meaning of the film, rather than assuming that Bresson would so blatantly construct and use such unchallenging and wan symbols and techniques?
When desperate, bad critics will tell all that, manifestly, Balthazar is an animal representation of Jesus Christ. Huh? Well, of course; then they trot out the above mentioned ‘proofs.’ In fact, Amazon.com’s own internal critic and synopsist, Jeff Shannon, actually writes this on the web page for the Criterion DVD of the film: "Dig deeper into Bresson’s art, however, and you’re likely to find a very Catholic story with strong parallels to the life of Christ and his unbearable burden of the sins of mankind." Ugh! Putting aside ontological and epistemological concerns over the reality or not of Jesus’s existence, in no way are there analogues to the Christ myth, save for the manifest masques that Bresson uses to hide the film’s deeper essence.
In fact, Bresson’s film is relentlessly materialist, even as it uses such to dig more deeply into the spiritual. There is no New Age hokum nor Mysticism here. There is no pious screeding of a Fundamentalist. Its milieu is the real physical nature of existence troped toward a greater ideal, and only revealed via the intensity of the material world it celebrates.
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.