Movie Au Hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson

Movies argon representation of the social scenario of the modern-day period. Along with entertainment, these have various social, political and psychological perspectives attached to it. This study is based on movie Au Hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson. In his 1966 need, Robert Bresson, has focus primarily on his fe potent character Marie, and her donkey Balthazar. The plot intertwines the portion of both these elements, until in the long run the symbolic connection between the twain is established. bit the donkeys fate is clear, we back land upnot be sure of Marie, beyond what we are told in the narrative.A shy, farm girl in the French countryside, Marie follows what something of Maggie Tullivers experience, worthless abuse from different people in her life, oscillating between lovers, finally deciding that she must accept fate, perhaps even rely on some sort of tragic occurrence to relieve her of her pain. This has been called narcissistic foolishness in literature ter minology, and finds its sharpest embodiment in the character of Marie. She too faces the harm of her parents disgrace, because of her fathers decision, a mother who stands by the father but ultimately sees the pointless agony of a ego pride, and then poverty and loss.The reason why women are presented in such terms, is as Laura Mulvey would say in her essay Visual Pleasure and account Cinema, due to the unconscious of patriarchal society. In this preexisting bewitchment with the female object, phallocentrism depends on image of the castrated wo soldiery. Female symbolism speaks of emasculation and her lack produces the phallus as symbolic. It stands as a signifier to the male other. It is thus the bearer of meaning, and not its maker. Women are bound by linguistic command to this situation, a command imposed by man to carry out his fantasies and obsessions.The formulation surely owes something to Bressons Au Hasard, Balthazar, whose literal gaoler here becomes a figurative bul l-a creature whose portion of spirituality is acquire in expressions of indiscriminate wrath and sexual irritability. (Librach, 1992) There are two processes at work in cinema. One is the separation of erotic personal identity of the subject, the viewer, from the object, the character on screen. While for women, the way that other characters in the use up look at her is the same as how viewers look at her, with the male, the viewer feels as though he is looking at the everlasting(a) mirror image of himself.Thus Gerard with his leather jacket and his motorcycle, his display of authority, often done violence and abuse, seems the double-dyed(a) embodiment of masculinity, someone that the heroine, simple by integrity of occupying screen space, must fall for in the end. It rests on the belief that all(prenominal) one of us essentially thinks of himself as a Gerard. While new-fangled feminist studies would refute this and recent changes in cinema have attempt to equate the two sexes on screen, the screen largely remains a sexual parameter due to its connection with the ego, something that greatly manifests sexuality.The woman, however, is isolated, put on display and sexualized. This is what Mulvey terms the castration complex. In order for the woman to no longer be a threat because she lacks what men have, she must be glamorized into an object of desire, or fetish. Marie finds a consolation in the donkey. It has been presented as the other, against which Marie can understand the need to sympathize and be pitied and loved. Marie is essentially a messiah figure, whose ultimate ideals find their embodiment in Balthazar.Perhaps it is for this reason that the donkeys fate has been presented explicitly, while Maries future remains in doubt. The perfect Christ must face explicit crucifixion. Marie might seem overtly tragic. This is somewhat due to Bressons insistence on purity of emotion. In this manner, Balthazar is the perfect Bresson character. Covered with snow, we have sex that he is cold, his tail on fire, we know that he is scared, and finally finding peace and motionlessness among the sheep, we know that his end has come.When three children baptize it symbolism tells us here that there is a place for all creatures in the house of god. The town drunkard Arnold is shows compassion, condescension his other crimes. All the characters in the village are essentially flawed. However, the films religious imagery and minimal use of aesthetic full stop makes it a powerful statement that highlights the barest of human emotions and thoughts. Reference Librach, Ronald S. The Last temptation in Mean Streets and Raging Bull. Literature/Film Quarterly 20. 1 (1992) 14+. Questia. Web. 11 May 2010.