Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

Devastating. Crazy to see Adele Exarchopoulos so young. You'll never hear the sound of a donkey braying the same way again

The novice actor Anne Wiazemsky is really effective as "Marie", a young woman who has shared most of her life with her donkey "Baltahzar". Initially her childhood pet, this creature has spent much of his life as the victim of inhumane treatment at the hands of subsequent owners - including her rather wretched boyfriend "Gérard" (François Lafarge) - that in may ways mirrors her own mistreatment and unhappiness. Unlike the human beings, though, "Balthazar" cannot communicate his feelings - he must quite literally just grin and bear it as he is used as a beast of burden, exposed to all weathers and generally neglected. Robert Bresson uses this scenario to compare and contrast the treatment of this animal with the way people treat each other - generous and engaging when they want something; brutal and selfish when they have or don't want it any more. This film offers us a depressing, yet curiously uplifting at times, view of the fickleness of youth and the intolerance of age - subtly. The dialogue is curiously aloof - almost superfluous as the story and their intertwined lives advance with an inevitability as certain and life and death itself. The photography is lingering and intimate, the pace gentle and it's touching. It is also real and gritty and plausible - and certainly a film that leaves you thinking.