Sarah Dobai will introduce the acclaimed Robert Bresson film Au Hasard Balthazar (1966). The film provided part of the inspiration for her own moving image work The Donkey Field, which will be screened as a looped presentation from 24 March to 9 April in CAST’s black box. Following the film there will also be a Q&A with Sarah, who will take questions from the audience about The Donkey Field and her practice in general. More information about The Donkey Field.
Au Hasard Balthazar follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel, but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly. Through Bresson’s unconventional approach to composition, sound and narrative, this simple story becomes a moving parable about purity and transcendence.
“Au Hasard Balthazar is about our anguish, our passion, in the face of a living creature that is pure humility, pure sanctity: a donkey, Balthazar. It’s about pride, avarice, sensuality, the need to make others suffer – in the men who, by chance, are given control of Balthazar, and by whose hands he dies.”
Robert Bresson
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