081 - Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

081 - Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Balthazar, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

The priest pours the water over Balthazar's head.  It runs down his face.  Down his beard.

Like the precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down on the collar of his robe.

Marie!  Marie!

The priest calls to the virgin.

Her father walks with her.  She comes.

The priest gives the virgin a candle.

Lit.

She holds it.

Receive the salt of wisdom.

The priest takes a pinch of salt.  He brings it to the mouth of the supplicant.

Salt both flavors and preserves.  It is given to guests as a mark of friendship and hospitality.  It symbolizes the binding of the contract.

The covenant.

You are the salt of the earth.

Be opened.  For a savor of sweetness.

The priest is a boy around 10 years old.

The virgin is a girl around 8 or 9.

The supplicant, Balthazar, named after the magi, after the legendary name of one of the three wise men (Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar), is not a person.

Balthazar is a donkey.

A donkey.

If you are not already familiar with this film, then you may be discovering for the first time something unique in cinema.  Something that stands alone.

A film about a donkey.  Whose life runs in parallel with a girl.

Which follows the stations of the cross.

Robert Bresson was raised Catholic.  I do not know, nor would I speculate, his status during the making of this movie.  Perhaps somewhere on a continuum between devout and agnostic.

He may be like James Joyce, whose Jesuit upbringing gave him the education and tools necessary to create his secular masterpieces.

Regardless of Bresson's personal beliefs at this stage in his life, the film is available to people in a wide range of theological points of view.

On one level, Au Hasard Balthazar demands a lot of its viewers.

On another level, it does not.

You may conceivably watch this movie the way you watch a movie about the life of a girl or about the life of an animal.  Say, a Lassie or a Benji movie.

Only with more suffering and tragedy.

At least, you may follow the story line and empathize with the protagonists, joining them on their emotional journey, without having to decode the complex symbolism contained in the film.

Jacques and Marie are children.  Marie's father works for Jacques's father.

Jacques's father owns the land.  Marie's father farms the land.

The children get a baby donkey.  They name him Balthazar.  They christen him.  Baptize him.  Love him.

They play with him in the barn.  Life is good.

Jacques loves Marie.  His love is innocent and pure.  He carves their names in a heart on a bench.  He tells her one day he will marry her.

He means it.

But Jacques has a sister who is sick.  She dies.  Their father is heartbroken.  He moves.

Jacques's father leaves a note for Marie's father.  I am heartbroken and have to move away.  You run the farm, using modern methods as you have desired to do, and do not bother to send me the accounts.  I trust you.

Jacques is taken away from Marie.

Marie will love the donkey.

Marie's father proves trustworthy.  He works the land.  He is honest with the accounts.

But people talk and rumors fly and someone writes to Jacques's father, accusing Marie's father of dishonesty.

Jacques's father will question Marie's father.  Marie's father will refuse to defend himself.  He is stubborn.  He is proud.  He is insulted that he would be doubted.

When Jacques returns a few years later he tells her he still loves her.  She has not seen him in awhile, so she does not know for sure.  She is honest with him.  She does not wish to lie.  This hurts him.

He goes to her father, perhaps to get work, perhaps to state his intentions.  We do not see the exchange.  But her father is resolute in his offense and rejects Jacques's requests.

Jacques drives away, again taken from Marie.

Meanwhile, Marie lives in the village with some bad hombres in it.

Including Gerard.  One of the cruelest, most sadistic people ever put on screen.

He oils the streets so that he can watch cars lose control and crash.

He ties a rag to Balthazar's tail and sets it on fire to watch the donkey suffer.  He kicks the donkey.  Beats it.

He punches a drunk man, Arnold, in the face.  Beats him.  Plants a gun in his house just before the police arrive, hoping that Arnold will be caught with the gun.  Or that he will even shoot and kill the police.  And get arrested.

He destroys a bar at a party, throwing all the expensive liquor bottles to the floor.  He makes someone else pay for it.

He steals from his own mother.

And he, let us say, moves upon Marie with great aggression.

It is hard to say exactly what these French filmmakers of this period intend to suggest.   They are of a time where things are implied rather than shown, so we do not see it, and they seem to be of an opinion that a good bit of aggression is sometimes welcome.

I think in our day we would say he rapes Marie.  But in the time of the movie they might have said he just keeps at it until she finally gives in.  I do not know.

But he is a person of such low moral character that one could easily assume the worst of him.

And we do know that later in the movie he and his gang will strip her, beat her, and lock her in a room, while running away, throwing her clothes to the wind, and celebrating.

He is a reprehensible character.

Whatever the case at this moment, Marie gives in.  And she gets used to it.  And her heart gets intertwined with him as girls' hearts can do.  She gets confused.  She believes she loves him.  She tells her mother she will go with him anywhere and do anything for him.  He continues to be cruel to her.  And to Balthazar.

OK, forget Lassie and Benji.  You cannot watch this movie on that level.  Only parts of it.  Only the parts where you see a donkey and your heart connects to his.

Balthazar will go through the hands of several owners.  No one will love them like Marie.  They will use him.  From the poor man to the rich man.  To the circus man.  And he will remain steadfast.  Always loyal.  Always faithful.  Always serving.  Despite the abuse.

Jacques returns a third time.  Now they are older.  Adults.  He still loves her.  He still intends to marry her.  She thinks about it.

She decides he is too earnest, too sincere.  He bores her.  He does not provide the excitement that the bad boy gives her.  So she will return to Gerard.  She has a date with him.  She cannot be late for it.

What is wrong with people?

Why can they not see love when it is standing right in front of their faces?

Why do they settle for abuse and heartache?

We live in a town full of engineers.  Middle-aged men with big bellies and receding hairlines.  Dull.  Nerdy.  Boring.

And faithful to the end.

My wife tells younger women those are the kinds of men you want.  Steadfast.  Loving.  Loyal.

But they are just not exciting enough.  Why be loved when you can have the thrill of a player?

And get your heart broken over and over?

And lose your self-esteem?

And feel like dirt?

Marie keeps her date.

It is at this "date" where Gerard and his gang will strip her and beat her.  Jacques will stand by her still.

Will Marie ever turn to Jacques?

Will she ever let him love her?

Or will she even survive the beating?

He has been standing there her whole life.

Loving her.

No matter what.

Well, let us just say this is not a romantic drama.

It is a story of suffering.

The Passion of the Christ.  The passion of Balthazar.  The passion of Marie.

The word passion comes from the Latin passio, meaning death.

And in the theology of Bresson's upbringing, passion, suffering, loss, death, brings redemption.

And maybe somehow, some way, this donkey, upon whom Marie placed a crown on his head when they were younger, can represent some kind of redemption.

And when you have time to view this movie on that other level, that deeper level, and decode its symbolism, you may find something beautiful or hopeful or good.

In the stations of the Cross.