Plot summary
Charles drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis, rejecting them all. Once he realises the depth of his disgust with the moral and physical decline of the society he lives in, he decides that suicide is the only option...
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A powerful cry of despair and hopelessness.
My Rating : 8/10
With only a 14-film oeuvre, Bresson is undoubtably the most minimalist yet original filmmaker ever to have graced this planet. To me he is the embodiment of purity in all of cinema as his work harrows the soul much deeply than any other filmmaker. Using untrained actors and methodically sculpting their sense of surprise and spontaneity Bresson exploits the interiority of a human being (or animal in the case of 'Au Hasard Balthazar') to be transferred on camera and therefore reveal a flow of visual imagery of 'feeling' which he called 'cinematography' as that is what distinguished cinema from theatre and literature according to him.
Our intellect fools us but our feelings reveal the bitter truths of the world. So when Charles (the young protagonist) says he sees everything 'too clearly' it is because he feels too much and therefore unable to succumb to the industrialised automation around him.
Hopelessness, despair, existentialism - it is all here and it's only purpose is to invite the viewer on a journey of frustration because the frustration is an evolutionary achievement and therefore a necessity (at least according to me...and Bresson).