The unparalleled style of French filmmaker Robert Bresson expands beyond the confines of the cinematic form. With each of his films — terse, transcendentalist examinations of the soul weighed against inhumane circumstances — it feels like Bresson unlocked a new layer of human experience. Most of all, he is perhaps the epitome of an uncompromising vision, as even his carbon copy imitators will fail to replicate the unnerving and chillingly probing sentiment of Pickpocket, A Man Escaped, and L’Argent.
While vastly differing tonally and stylistically, Wes Anderson’s whimsical tone and elaborate formalism are idiosyncratic in their own right. Like Bresson, Anderson attempts to understand our emotional complexities through unorthodox paths, and it’s no surprise that the Rushmore director took a great liking to Bresson’s most sorrowful film, Au hasard Balthazar, following a journey of pain and neglect through the eyes of a donkey. You won’t experience anything more profound.
Robert Bresson Has a Minimalist Style Similar to Wes Anderson
Image via Cinema Ventures
Before being popularized by Stanley Kubrick and David Fincher, Robert Bresson was notorious for pushing his actors, usually of the non-professional variety, to perform countless takes. His sobering and bleak dramas are all about digging for the core of the human condition, a natural phenomenon that an artificial medium like cinema is incapable of tapping into. As a result, Bresson created minimalist sets and simple narratives, and, combined with a directing style that forced his actors to shed the artificiality of performance through an onslaught of takes, his films represent the purest form of our primal existence.
In 1966, Bresson had the ultimate epiphany. Instead of relentlessly trying to extract unadulterated emotionality from human beings, he turned to a lovable equine. Not only is it impossible not to feel some emotional attachment to a pure and honest animal in a donkey, but the animal’s raw expressions on the screen became a touchstone for the work of Bresson. Au hasard Balthazar follows the journey of the titular donkey, who is cruelly mistreated and disregarded as he is transferred from owner to owner. The concise forwardness of the film’s plot is quintessential Bresson, constructing a simple, poetic narrative so that the viewer can dissect every ounce of the characters’ psychological complexities without any hindrances caused by plotting.
For the Criterion Collection, Wes Anderson placed Au hasard Balthazar at #2 of his all-time favorite films (or at least of movies in the film preservation company’s collection). “You hate to see that poor donkey die,” Anderson said, referring to the film’s heartbreaking conclusion. “He takes a beating and presses on, and your heart goes out to him,” the director continued, citing the key to the film’s everlasting potency. Bresson has a twisted fondness for people in nihilistic headspaces, from the desperate and lonely street thief in Pickpocket to the band of aspiring youth terrorists in The Devil, Probably. While exploring themes of abuse and trauma is an easy ploy for dramatic intensity, Bresson deals with these thorny ideas without an ounce of exploitation. By following the story from the perspective of the donkey, we can comprehend the subtle, implicit methods by which people and animals are mistreated. With the target of the abuse being such a vulnerable figure — one who is passed around like currency — Bresson emphasizes how the slightest gestures and judgments affect our self-esteem.
Robert Bresson Explores the Human Condition Through the Eyes of a Donkey
Au hasard Balthazar proved to be the culmination of Bresson’s worldview and cinematic language, as the donkey and all his unvarnished evocation of pain and grief codified the director’s intent when crafting his existential exercises. Even under Bresson’s meticulous, suppressive control of feelings, humans implicitly express emotions in relation to their surroundings. Balthazar, however, carries the same blank expression throughout each harrowing sequence of abuse and neglect. The empty facial gestures convey substantially more pathos than your typical theatrical showcase. To Anderson’s point, watching Balthazar persevere through life as he’s being tossed aside as disposable cattle is a testament to his strength, but it’s mostly a devastating reminder that he’ll go about life thinking that this is normal. Despite operating in the abyss of human behavior, Bresson emphasizes that mundane mistreatment should not be an inevitable facet of life, no matter how hard we want to turn the other cheek.
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The films of Robert Bresson don’t seem to share any throughlines with Wes Anderson’s symmetrical mise-en-scene and twee aesthetic, but between The Royal Tenenbaums and Asteroid City, the writer-director is attracted to dysfunctional families and motley crews. Au hasard Balthazar is especially heartbreaking for Anderson, as Bresson’s moving reflection of abuse depicts a being with palpable emotionality who is deprived of any source of companionship. Tackling the transactional nature of life is a heavy burden, but Bresson distilled these lofty ideas through the sympathetic eyes of a donkey, because how could you not feel for the poor thing?
Au Hasard Balthazar
Release Date
May 25, 1966
Runtime
95 Minutes
Director
Robert Bresson