Although I'm great admirer of this director's work, "Balthazar" is the one Bresson piece that I simply can't bring myself to like. The mechanical and monotonous uttering of text that works so well in "Pickpocket" and "Mouchette" just looks like bad acting on purpose here. If the camerawork of "Pickpocket" is easily as dexterous as its thieving protagonists, the motion of "Balthazar" is just about as stodgy as its central character - a young donkey. This donkey is being pushed around throughout the movie, and so is the audience with a number of fragmentary situations and the constant question of WHY the characters are doing whatever they are doing. Nothing is convincingly motivated here; things just turn to the worst as if this was a general rule of intellectual filmmaking. Another thing I strongly disliked about "Balthazar" is its overblown allegorical touch. The numerous religious implications do make sense, but they don't help the movie to become a more touching and a less strained affair. Bresson isn't Bergman, and a stronger accent on social topics instead of these biblical allusions would have made it more credible to me. Yes, there are very strong and even haunting moments in this movie, just as there are in any Bresson picture, and I admit I had wet eyes during the last scene, but I never came to care for it as much as I would have liked to. However, other people in the audience clearly seemed to do so, which is why my comments probably shouldn't be generalized.
