LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

sbasu-47-608737 The story of the Father, the daughter and St Balthasar...Most of us have missed the third equally saintly person, whose life too followed the same path as the other two, Marie's father, the School Teacher turned farmer.All the three main characters were pure to the point of being angelic, innocent of the worldly things, honest and hence extremely vulnerable. They retained their purity and innocence (of the soul) to the end, even though embittered. Each of the three had been directly or indirectly back-stabbed by some one they completely trusted. The father by his friend, who had given the farm to him on lease, with full powers and then suddenly turned against him. Balthasar by Marie, and Marie by Jacques, the son of the friend. In this vulnerable situation each had been exploited, both physically as well as mentally, one of them had been in fact seduced as well as sexually exploited by the exploiters, but the other two had gone through equally severe torture. The main face of the villain for all the three had been Gerard, but he was not exactly or the only devil, just a vessel for the darkness, or rather his lightning rod. No less blame goes to Jacques, whose walking off in a huff, without even bothering to say Good-bye, made Marie vulnerable to Gerard, whom she had kept afar till then or Jacques father, who relied on slanders than his friend, or even the society and the church and of course the humans in general. The people who had power - Brute power like Gerard or money like the rich miser (Arnold) - used their power, and even justified the use, to exploit them, even to the point of telling them that might is right, use of power is not corruption, it is the honest and poor who are always at wrong.In the end, all the three turn away from the world, including the solace (church) embittered. But by this church, probably the director didn't mean the Supreme, but only those who represent Him but in reality don't, i.e. the priest. Thankfully the end of the angels were not melodramatic, even the only survivor, Marie's mother, was dignified in her destroyed universe. Despite each of the three turning down and rejecting the so called solace (Church, Jacques or Freedom) when it came at last, the end is symbolic, Balthasar (and I assume his other two co-miserable) reaching the garden, with flock of pure white sheeps fawning over them.

Bob Pr. I've just finished seeing this in a monthly foreign film series and wish I could give it two different ratings -- probably a "2" because I kept trying to figure out its plot and couldn't but also an "8" or "9" because it does show that in living, as Balthazar experienced in this film, many of us go through a number of very different experiences. Seeing this film without first having read any reviews or with any advance knowledge of its message, it was finally that latter view that I arrived at after giving up on trying to figure out "the plot."

Robin Kluger Vigfusson Aside from the actors being forced by Bresson to give self-consciously impassive performances, the whole premise of the picture is false and tortured. Bresson makes a donkey a metaphor for saintly Christian behavior and by imposing his religion on nature, Bresson, himself, is contemptible and grandiose. Animals are pure beings for the very fact that they are outside of man made dogma. They are creatures of intuition and emotion who often seem far more moral than human beings steeped in the kind of theology Bresson wants to extol, here.I know I'm in the minority, but I think, for the very reason Bresson forced his own world view onto innocent Balthazar, the movie is a failure. For me, the only moving scene was the climax where dying Balthazar seeks out a herd of sheep for comfort. These animals are as pure and unassuming as he is for the very reason that they have no religion or agenda, unlike the film's director.

treywillwest Just purchased a used copy at work and saw the film last night, for the second time. It reconfirmed for me what I suspected upon an initial viewing- that it's one of the four or five greatest films I've ever seen. That sounds like hyperbole from a guy with an MFA in film studies, but its far from a radical statement. While Bresson is woefully under-represented even in most film schools (at least in the U.S.) he is considered by many a hard-core cineast among the greatest in the pantheon of auteur's, and many think this his highest accomplishment. Godard called it "the world in 90 minutes" so I think that tells you something. Bresson started out as a painter, and I think what is so unique about this film is the way it has a narrative power different than that of any film I've ever seen. Indeed, it seems more like the "still" narrative of a painting, like that of a Caravaggio or a Rembrandt. It's not narrative in the sense of a "beginning, middle, and end" because its truths- the fleeting joys and predominate pain of life and death- are so universal that we know them, on some level, before we witness the work. But art-works of such grandeur illuminate what we take for granted and make life seem, again, like a transcendent drama.