Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)una fábula mística

  1. Basilio Casanova 1
  1. 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

Journal:
Trama y fondo: revista de cultura

ISSN: 1137-4802

Year of publication: 2022

Issue Title: La imaginación creadora

Issue: 52

Pages: 37-71

Type: Article

More publications in: Trama y fondo: revista de cultura

Abstract

Robert Bresson's film Au hasard Balthazar is an example of a sublimatory pathway, that therefore transforms the drive energy. It is a reading that leads upwards –anagogic– and that follows the text to the letter. It returns to us both the ascending journey of the donkey that gives the film its title, and that of its female protagonist. The film reveals itself as a fable about the symbolic presence of Balthazar, a name with regal and magical resonances. The donkey is the real guiding thread, the incarnate witness of an inner conscience. Balthazar's gaze neither obstructs nor retouches the real, because his eye is, to paraphrase Bresson himself, neither too thoughtful nor too intelligent.