I'm so sorry I watched this - SPOILER

I agree with you. It's almost as if the consensus among critics is that this is a profoundly deep and meaningful movie and yet when they go to explain why you just get a whole lot of blabber. I thought it was different and thought provoking, but I'm not ready to find all of these hidden meanings that were probably never intended by anyone involved with the film.

Haha thanks for the warning. I've decided not to watch this movie.

I had been willing to give it a shot, but then my eyes happened upon the nice SPOILER, courtesy of imdb. It's on the main page, halfway down, on the highlighted goofs section. Kinda hard to miss.

Anyway, next I read a few comments. Check out the one by Ross Wilson. I think he touches on the same sentiment you have, and I agree wholeheartedly. He says, "I can only imagine the people who love this film, are also the same people who think pictures of poor people are art, are naturally self pitying, and appreciate obvious painful illustrations of life." (The review should be at/near the top of this page...)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0060138/usercomments?filter=hate

Lastly, I saw your title and decided to read your post. Ayep... this sounds like just the sort of movie I try to avoid: a bleak picture of "life sucks and then you die". Coupled with the "suffering is good for the soul" quasi-religious propeganda, this is a message that has no value to me. I find it rather oversimplified, puerile and self-pitying. I can't believe the director had to subject a poor donkey to all of that torture just for the sake of a rather pointless message. (As someone has pointed out, there isn't any "animals were not harmed" disclaimer at the end, so we can assume the worst.)

P.S. This rant is not intended to criticize the film artistically (obviously I can't, because I haven't even watched it). I'm simply commenting on the theme itself, as indicated by some of the posts I've read. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I personally believe this film is NOT necessarily about a donkey. I think Bresson's just trying to cloud our vision as to what is really going on and what is wrong with the world. We take such care in seeing that Balthazar is o.k. and when he finally dies an absurd death we all complain about how nihilistic it is, how cruel. But what about Marie??? No one even cares to venture a guess as to where she went. "She's gone." Where??? Why??? WTF??? It's a strange thing to personify an animal and dehumanize a person. As I saw my fiance shed some tears for the life of the donkey, I consoled her, then intoned, "Don't forget about Marie." Pure, unadulterated genius on Bresson's part.

Critics often do talk in circles, it's an occupational hazard -- that's because we're usually trying not to give too much away, preferring to let the movie work its own magic. (For the past 25 years, I've been a film critic.)

Since you went right for the jugular and have discussed the ending, there's no reason to be coy. I'll tell you as bluntly as I can what I love about the film:

1) Balthazar's life is represented complete, from cradle to grave. We don't see his birth, but we see his baptism, at the fade in -- enacted on him by children who are, for the moment, as innocent as he. They quickly lose their innocence, in the sense that the more grownup humans he meets from here on are corrupt and often cruel, yet Balthazar, being an animal, keeps his innate purity.

2) He is neither a saint or a genius (as he is referred to by two people, at different times), he is simply true to his nature.

3) Bad things do not happen to him because he is too accepting. Being himself, which is to say without inner conflict (however painfully bewildered he becomes at his constant mistreatment) he can be no other way than simply, infinitely patient, uncomplaining, unremembering.

4) However haphazardly it comes to him, his "baptism" implies that, like ALL animals, but more visibly in his case, he is blessed by God. That sheep gather about him, like living woollen comforters, as he softly kneels and dies is confirmation that his whole life has been blessed, despite its hardships, that a just God is blessing his death as explicitly, and lovingly, as his birth.

5) That you're angry and depressed is only natural -- it's your own far-off death that Balthazar's destruction is haunting you with. As well it should. Bresson is calling upon all of us to imagine our deaths. Not that we'll all be winged by some stray bullet, fired by smugglers on some mountainside -- but death, when it comes for each of us, will inevitably feel just as senseless, from the inside -- at first. Perhaps some grace (comparable to those sheep) will surprise each of us -- or not -- in ways ideally suited for our particular souls. That's the hope Bresson is expressing.

You're not persuaded, one can gather from what you've written -- but you're living it and feeling the anguish out of which the movie has arisen, and Bresson could have asked for no more profoundly honest a response.

-- F.X. FEENEY

To the folks who say they avoid the film because of its tragic content or ending - I shudder to think of how you would react to (live plays now) Oedipus Rex, Othello, Hamlet or King Lear. (And if you say what's so great about Shakespeare, then I feel as sorry for you as I do for a blind person who cannot appreciate a sunset or a deaf person who cannot appreciate a symphony or any othe rpiece of music.) Thirty-three years after I first saw this film in college, it still resonates, but really, if people decide that because a story - novel - play - film - whatever - has a sad ending it is valueless, I suppose that is only their loss.

It seems to me a parable, and as such it is quite effective from the sounds of it.

Of course when you are familiar with the New Testament you will know this as old hat, and new challenges may claim your attention. Some people may obsess over the new testament, others may revile it and prefer their own of the main religions...
Others may recognize it and go back with the things we have learned since then.

Ticks Ticks thousands of ticks, and not one blessed TOCK among them!

> I am sad and depressed after seeing this. What a bleak picture of life Bresson painted. I wanted it explained, so I watched some old, blabbering critic speak in circles and vaguely point out why the film was so great. That also was a disappointment.

Must all great films be uplifting and/or escapist in nature? I really don't get the drift of your argument. I understand all these "happy endings" occur in Hollywood, but you are watching European cinema and consider Bergman, who is (IMHO) far more pessimistic and bleak than Bresson is. At least, in Bresson, there is still God to rely on.

Who wants explanation? Robert Bresson is one of those, who never underestimated his audience. So many great ones do, all the time. Bresson never did. He expects his audience to be smart, focused and mature. He never explains and all the twists and turning points in Balthazar are showed through symbolism and metaphores. A masterpiece. It is a very dark picture of life and the world. But what a soulful and beautiful picture it is.

"I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle"