Au hasard Balthazar
1966 film by Robert Bresson
Au hasard Balthazar (French pronunciation: [o a.zaʁ bal.ta.zaʁ]; meaning "Balthazar, at Random"), also known as Balthazar, is a 1966 tragedy film written and directed by Robert Bresson. Believed to be inspired by a passage from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1868–69 novel The Idiot, the film follows a donkey as he is given to various owners, most of whom treat him callously.
Noted for Bresson's ascetic directorial style and regarded as a work of profound emotional effect, it is frequently listed as one of the greatest films of all time. The film premièred at the 1966 Venice Film Festival where it won the OCIC Award, the San Giorgio Prize, and the New Cinema Award.
Plot
In the French countryside near the Pyrenees, a baby donkey is adopted by young children—Jacques and his sisters—who live on a farm. They baptize the donkey, christening him Balthazar, along with Marie, Jacques' childhood sweetheart, whose father is the teacher at the small school next door. When one of Jacques' sisters dies, his family vacates the farm, and Marie's family takes Balthazar over in an informal arrangement. Balthazar is given to local farmhands, who work him relentlessly. Years pass until Balthazar is involved in an accident and runs off, eventually finding his way back to Marie, now a teenager. Marie's father becomes embroiled in legal disputes over the farm with Jacques' father, and Balthazar is given to a local bakery for delivery work.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Au hasard Balthazar” as 1966 film by Robert Bresson. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1966 film by Robert Bresson. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q228937. VIAF identifies the subject as 250831211. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966 and 1868.
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This entry incorporates text from “Au hasard Balthazar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.