Au Hazard Balthazar (1966)

Director: Robert Bresson
Country: France

Bresson, the master of simplicity made it again and he only needed a bunch of non-professional actors, specific camera movements, classical music, and a couple of donkeys (a foal and an adult one). This is really the most heartbreaking story I ever seen, it punched my heart and soul so hard and pulverized my feelings completely (I went into a deep funk for two or three weeks maybe) to the point of wanting to turn off my home video equipment and throw away the material. 

The beginning of the film when the little kids christened the little donkey named Balthazar (which is the main character in the film) in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit was a very sweet moment that stayed with me, but saddly things get complicated for Balthazar and Marie, his owner, in their respectives lifes. This movie shows us the human condition in every single way: greed, cruelty, sexuality, loneliness, love and hate, and finally death, Bresson made the passion of Christ performed by a simple and beautiful donkey, which as Christ who was christened, then betrayed and finally killed, 

Balthazar becomes a Catholic Saint, only to be betrayed and killed like Jesus, Is it very difficult not being reduced into nothing after seeing Balthazar being mistreated with cruelty by their respective owners like in the sequence when he's in the circus and he looks at other animals (a tiger and a big bear) as well as in the scene when he becomes a mathematician donkey, which honestly I couldn't take it and I wept. 

After finally seeing Balthazar dying surrounded by sheeps I collapsed emotionally (I love donkeys so much, so the feeling was stronger), and my heart blow out, this movie is a complete masterpiece and for the first time in my life I felt myself so vulnerable while watching a movie, and just writing and thinking about it moves me to tears 'cause (paraphrasing Orson Welles) this movie would make a stone cry.